


Of the People

by projectml



Series: Project: Bastille Day 2016 [6]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, project bastille day 2016, warning: someone dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-24 05:49:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7496268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/projectml/pseuds/projectml
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sixth Bastille AU for Project: Bastille Day 2016.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bleu

_Those of the upper reaches of society see Chat Noir and Ladybug as criminals and blasphemers, their powers an affront to God and country. Yet how could the heroes of Paris, the saviors of the poor, be labeled infidels by those they protect? Perhaps the Inquisitional lens should be turned in other directions._

— Essais Revolutionnaires, La Voix.

* * *

Fog rolls off the Seine, clotting the arteries of wide causeways and narrow alleys alike. This early, the pulse of the sun is faint, casting a scant glow over dark streets. Flames still flicker in the street lamps that line the road spanning out from _Le Pont Neuf_.

Marinette is used to the morning dark, but there’s something about the fog that sets her step a beat quicker. The creaking of wood carts on cobblestone and the muttered sounds of tired conversation filter through the street.

“Hey, _ma fille_ , what’s the rush?”

Dark forms emerge from the fog - a gaggle of men swaggering out from one of the adjacent alleys. The men - boys, really - look younger than her. Her eyes flick to each, sizing them up, weighing her odds. It’s not the first time someone has attempted to corner her during morning deliveries, but she’s never had to deal with a group. She stifles a sigh and hefts her basket higher on her back.

“I’m afraid I’m running late,” she says, “and if I don’t hurry up, M. Agreste will be displeased.”

Most mornings, a cool smile, some batted eyelashes, and the threat of the Agreste name is enough to keep the basest of interlopers at bay. Marinette takes a step forward, ready for the boys to part around her. Instead, she’s met with a wall of ugly laughter and the wet sound of saliva hitting cobblestone.

One of them hops forward, reaching for the end of a baguette from her basket. Marinette steps back, dodging him and making the other boys laugh harder. He sneers and launches towards her again.

“You can tell _Monsieur Le Papillon_ exactly where to shove his baguettes.”

The rest of the group closes in behind him, pushing her towards the shuttered door of a tavern.

“Shame he won’t have any!” another boy calls.

Marinette is not amused. With one hand, she begins reaching for the thrumming coin purse tucked in her apron. She begins a countdown, readying herself.

_Dix, neuf_ …

“Come on, _petite souris_ , do a cat a favor and share a little bread,” the closest one says.

She rolls her eyes. It’s not typically from a stranger that she hears such ridiculous phrases.

_Huit, sept, six_ …

“Sorry, this isn’t for sharing,” she snaps. “Now, if you’ll please let me by.”

Another chorus of laughter. The angry buzz at her hip intensifies.

_Cinq, quatre_ …

“We’re just hungry, is all!” another says.

There’s no doubt there. Regardless of their true intent (bread or otherwise), the hollow cheeks of the boys are those of the near-famished. She’s become quite familiar with gaunt limbs and wan, parted lips these past few years.

_Trois_ …

Marinette’s tempted to toss them a baguette, to see if they’d let her be. Still, it’s not the bread at her back, but the purse at her side, that she grabs and pulls out.

“Let me pass.”

_Deux_ …

The closest boy puts both hands on her shoulders. She jerks away from his touch. She’s going to break both of his hands, and maybe a leg for good measure.

“Quit the cat and mouse,” he starts.

_Un_.

Marinette unties her purse with a hand.

“Ti-”

Metal glints, catching her eye as it retreats to a point above her. The boy’s eyes bulge, and he stumbles back before dropping flat on his ass.

“First of all,” a voice rings out, “that’s a terrible cat joke.”

What little fear stirred in her chest is replaced with a burst of warmth. She looks up and over her shoulder and spots the dark figure on the low roof of an adjacent building.

“Second of all, keep your filthy hands to yourself.”

The cluster of boys don’t react fast enough, but she catches sight of the whirling baton a moment before two of the assailants fly back.

“And finally, theft is a crime punishable by imprisonment under the reign of our King, Louis XVI. Which, by the looks of you all, isn’t in your best interests.”

Shadow against shadow, Chat Noir cuts across the pre-dawn sky and lands between her and the remnants of the group. Were it not for the slightest scuff of heeled boot on stone, she might think him a ghost. Still, he is all man, all muscle and sinew underneath that black ensemble, when his hand curls around the collar of the nearest boy and heaves him up. Those remaining from the group scatter.

The boy looks green. His breath comes out in harsh pants, but the panic in his eyes doesn’t keep him from spitting at Chat Noir’s feet and snarling, “Fuck the King, go ahead and take me to prison - bet they get fed in there. I thought you were a man of the people, Chat Noir, but I bet you’re just some noble’s son who gets off on prancing around in a mask.”

Marinette can’t see Chat’s face, but she’s privy to the flick of his belt-like tail. It lashes back and forth a few times from under the pleats of his black _justaucorps_. A long moment passes before he responds.

“I am of the people,” he rumbles. “And as such, it is my duty to make sure vagrants like you aren’t traipsing around, harassing innocents.”

Chat’s free hand clenches into a fist, then springs open, fingers splayed. Marinette expects to see a thick, black power swimming around his gloved hand, expects to see rust and rubble a heartbeat later. Instead, Chat releases the boy with a shove.

“As for prison, the jailors I’ve spoken to claim a much different menu, but perhaps you’d like to go and see? Maybe report back for us?”

His chuckle follows the boy as he scampers away, cursing at Chat under his breath. Chat crosses his arms and turns to face her, wide grin in place. It’s not enough to fool her, though he’ll never know it. To her, the tense line of his shoulders are as obvious as the twitch of his tail.

“You were quite brave, _mademoiselle_. I suppose I know who to seek out next time Paris needs its bread kept safe.”

Marinette tries not to roll her eyes – she’s supposed to be overawed at her savior, not amused.

“I’m a baker’s daughter,” she says. “You’re a hero of the city.”

The sky has begun to lighten, making his black attire seem even darker. Nonetheless, when his grin shifts into a genuine smile, it feels like the sun has turned to cast its glow on her. She ducks her head, covering her fond look, and steps past him.

“I’m a servant of the city,” he says, pride tinging his voice, “but Ladybug and I can’t be everywhere. We need more people like you, even if it’s just to protect someone’s bread.”

Marinette resumes her course towards the Agreste Manor. Chat walks alongside her. More people are edging out onto the street now, some curious to see Chat Noir, others trying to start their day. Heads turn to eye the basket overfilled with bread. Right now, she is a baker’s daughter, and the striking man by her side does well to keep their stares from becoming more.

“At the rate things are going,” she says, “there won’t be much bread on the streets to protect.”

“All the more reason for Monsieur Agreste and his household to be thankful for your services.”

The street broadens to a wide, tree-lined thoroughfare, and the jumble of aging storefronts turn to fashionable well-kept homes. The Agreste manor stands at the end of the way, imposing, and looks all the way down the street back to the Seine.

The largest home in all of the Faubourg Saint-Germain rests behind a massive iron gate. Twisting vines and intricate butterflies have been carefully wrought into its form, the veins of leaf and wing alike impossibly intricate and fine. For years, debate rolled through the streets of Paris over whether Gabriel Agreste’s nickname, _Le Papillon_ , had come from his elaborate dyed and embroidered attire, or from his famous fence.

As she always does when she approaches the manor, Marinette thinks of the cramped two-room apartment (a luxury) her parents keep over the _boulangerie_ , of the searing heat from the ovens below that wakes her each morning. She considers the basket, the hollow stares of Paris’ poorest, the listless eyes that track her passage every day.

“Yes, I am sure they appreciate it,” she says airily. “It would have been such a tragedy for the Agrestes to go without their bread and jam. Perhaps they would have had to breakfast on cake instead.”

Chat stops. She turns to see what’s caused his abrupt pause, and finds his green eyes locked on her. His black mask covers from nose to hairline, so whatever expression crosses his face is lost on her.

“Everyone has to eat,” he says. It’s the most guarded he’s sounded all morning.

Marinette nods. “Everyone has to eat. Whether they do, or not, is a different matter.”

She glances from Chat to the gate. The morning is lightening to day, and if she doesn’t hurry now, there will be no breakfast for said Agrestes and no payment for her delivery.

“If you’ll excuse me, M. Noir, I am late.”

Chat says nothing, an uncharacteristic response, and bows. He’s off an instant later, pulling his baton from his waistcoat and vaulting to the roof of one of the other manor homes. He disappears.

Sighing, Marinette turns from the front of the Agreste home, and treks all the way around to the servant’s entrance.

* * *

“Messieurs Agreste will be dining with the Prévôt tomorrow evening, so you should be able to send most of the staff home early…”

Nino trails off as familiar laughter rings over the bustle and shouts of the crowded kitchen. The head chef coughs none-too-subtly, and waves a hand towards the source of the sound. A glance is all it takes to catch sight of the red kerchief and black plaits underneath. Nino excuses himself, stands up, and brushes the crumbs of his breakfast off of his blue breeches.

“Marinette!”

Within the hot, frantic kitchen, people clear like clockwork, taking bowls and butcher blocks and whatever else they need with them as they move out of the way. More than a few of the servants, particularly the older women, give him a hard stare as he bustles past them and throws his arms around his friend. He refuses to let his good mood be dampered. It’s not like any of them dared to complain.

Marinette returns the hug before he leans away to look down at her.

“Nino,” she says, laughing. “It’s like I haven’t seen you in ages!”

If there’s one thing Nino loves about Marinette, it’s how little she - like him - cares so little about the opinions of gossipy old kitchen women. Whispers do little to temper their friendship, as questionable as familiarity between a baker’s girl and the attendant to the most powerful judge in Paris might be.

“I wasn’t able to get down here yesterday, so yes, two whole days is _ages_ ,” he says. “And you were late this morning. What happened?”

“Nothing, nothing,” she says.

Marinette waves him off, but she’s been a bad liar for as long as he’s known her: her eyes stray to the side.

“Marinette.”

“I got stopped by a couple of idiots on my way over,” she mutters.

It’s not often that Paris’ underbelly claws its way up to Saint Germain, but those that do are known for nastiness. Nino’s heart finds a new home in his stomach.

“Did they hurt you?” Nino asks, ignoring her protests as he spins her around and checks for injuries. “If they put their hands on you-”

Marinette wiggles from his grip and scowls.

“I’m _fine_. Chat Noir stuck his whiskers in and everyone all ran off.”

He doesn’t even try to hide his relief. Still, there’s little good that can come from Chat Noir being spotted so close to such a prestigious and, presumably, safe neighborhood. If M. Agreste were to find out…

Nino must let his response lapse too long, for now Marinette looks concerned as she puts her hand on his forearm and insists, “Nino, I’m all right, really. Now, drop the worry, Mother Hen, because I have something for you.”

She slowly pulls something from her apron, diverting his attention. Marinette clicks her tongue when she sees his rapt attention. From her pocket comes a thick envelope.

“I see how it is,” she teases, “You weren’t as much concerned about _my_ safety as _this_.”

His protests fall flat as he tracks the envelope with his eyes, and bounces a hair on his heels.

With great ceremony, Marinette passes the envelope over to Nino. He turns it over and traces a finger over the wax seal - crimson, embossed with an ornate ‘C’ - before thanking her.

Nino stares at the envelope with intent and affection, and his thumbs twitch at the edge of the seal. The temptation to press the heavy paper to his nose and breathe deep is tempered by the fact that Marinette still stands in front of him, hands on her hips and a smirk on her lips. He’d never hear the end of it. He tucks the envelope into his jacket.

“Tell Alya thanks, for me,” he says, trying to muster as much dignity as possible between Marinette’s giggling and his reddening cheeks.

“Tell her yourself,” Marinette says. “She’d like to see you, perhaps this Sunday. Surely there’s one day that Gabriel Agreste pauses in his work long enough to let you rest. “

“Never,” Nino says. “But I’ll see what I can do.”

* * *

It’s not his fault that the air in his father’s chamber is particularly stuffy, nor is it his fault that what’s being droned on about is the most boring of the endless boring topics he’s sat through. And while it might be his fault that he’s tired enough to start dozing off in the heat of mid-afternoon, Adrien doesn’t think anyone should blame him: being the saviour of the city is a tiring task.

“And to think, Louis is considering bending to the taxation demands of _peasants_ \- Adrien!”

Adrien’s head snaps up, and he tries to blink away the haze.

“T-truly outrageous,” Adrien sputters, hoping his response is appropriate. Typically, Gabriel Agreste’s diatribes revolve around something he considers an egregious offense, so Adrien can’t be far off.

Gabriel runs a hand down the front of his indigo _justaucorps_ and looks down his nose at Adrien. He gives a sharp nod a moment later. The gesture is one of his father’s favorite, an inventive blend of disgust and approval.

“Pay attention once the Estates General starts,” he says. Gabriel turns from him to look out the large window of his office. “Eventually, you will have jurisdiction over these same people.”

Adrien’s nods and fights the desire to slink out of the room and run as fast as possible to Plagg. The call of Chat Noir twitches at every muscle in his body, but still, he waits.

* * *

Paris sinks into a sea of flame. The Seine is twisting molten metal, reflecting the deep oranges and reds of the setting sun. It’s his second favorite sight, to watch his world turn to smokeless smolder every evening.

Chat’s most favorite sight comes a moment later, in a swirl of deep red and black.

There are exclamations below as people in the streets catch sight of her. Regardless of what the priests or nobles might say, everything about Ladybug is pure magic: her skirts ripple behind her as she swings between rooftops, making it seem like she is flying, caught on the wind, rather than hauling herself around with her bandalore.

Even if she is not truly in flight, she is certainly flying in the face of those who condemn them, landing with a neat click of heels against stone on the roof of the Notre Dame’s tower. The spotted bandalore circles her waist with a snap of her wrist. A smile rises on her face, for him.

“Good evening, My Lady,” he purrs. He pushes off of the gargoyle he’d been leaning on and bows.

She graces him with a, “Good evening, Chat Noir,” and takes the hand he offers.

Arm in arm, they stroll along the perimeter of Notre Dame, going as far as they can on each side. They catch up on what they’ve seen on their separate patrols, making note of trouble spots. Maybe it’s just him, but it seems as though there are more than ever.

“We ought to start patrolling the _Île_ daily,” he says after Ladybug reports yet another violent altercation in one of the markets in the city center. Ladybug shoots him a concerned glance, and he backtracks. “We could alternate,” Chat continues, “so we wouldn’t each have to be out every day.”

“It’s hard enough keeping Ladybug from my family now,” she says. “They’re going to start noticing if I disappear every other day. Unlike someone, I’m not able to sneak out as my alter ego whenever I choose. If they caught me, I’d never be let out again.”

Chat laughs and elbows her in the side. “Maybe they’ll just think you’re having a racy affair with a secret lover.”

Groaning, Ladybug buries her face in her hands. The ribbons spiralling down from the hat perched on her dark curls rustle with the motion.

“I would be dead to my parents if they thought that. Not that it isn’t true, but that might almost be worse. If anyone found out I’d been-”

He pulls her hands away from her face and wraps her in an embrace. She sinks into his touch, and her arms loop around his waist. They stand together long enough for the sky to grow dim.

When it’s like this, him and her, it’s almost possible to forget that he’s never seen the full face of the woman behind the mask; he can come close to forgetting that she refuses to let him find her outside of these precious evenings, that she won’t even tell him her name. He almost manages to convince himself that this might be forever. Chat Noir and his Lady.

Slowly, they unfold from each other. They walk over to the edge of the roof and sit so that they can look over the city.

“It would be the scandal of the century,” he muses, picking up where she left off. “The Church would lose their minds over it.”

“I can see the flyers now,” she says, “Chat Noir and Ladybug, villains of Paris, involved in… _intimate relations_.” Her voice rises with the last few words, sounding both embarrassed and amused.

Chat would love to push the subject, a Ladybug abashed is always a delight, but she reminds him of something.

“Speaking of flyers…” he says, reaching into his coat, “Have you seen this?”

Chat pulls out a flattened scroll of paper and hands it to Ladybug. Her blue eyes flick between the paper and his face. Red-gloved fingers make quick work of the paper; she traces the tear at the top (he’d tried hard to pull the notice from its nail without ripping it much, but to no avail), and then flattens the paper out on her lap. She scans it, then looks back at him. The slightest of frowns pulls at her lips.

“Care to tell me what this is all about?”

It seems plain to him, the heraldry and fleur-de-lis marking the document as a proclamation from the King unmistakeable. It should be just as obvious why he’s bringing it to her, but he’ll indulge his Lady.

“King Louis has invited Ladybug and Chat Noir to bear witness to the convening of the Estates-General in the following weeks,” he explains. “As vital protectors of the city and representatives of the city, His Highness has deemed it of value to have both present, should they feel it _worthy of their time_.”

He wraps up with a snort, shaking his head.

“Like we’d want to get ourselves tied up in the dealings of boring, old men, talking about politics.”

He receives no reply. Chat turns to see Ladybug fixing the paper with an intent stare. She strokes one side edge with her thumb, still trying to flatten it, even as it’s clear her mind is somewhere else.

“They’d… they’d let me participate?”

If he hadn’t known her for going on two years, Chat would have missed the waver in her voice. Ladybug, ever strong, ever serious, wouldn’t say it, but then again, she didn’t have to. Chat had witnessed first hand the scorn in the eyes of police officers and politicians as Ladybug, skirts long and full to her feet, handed over some wanted criminal. He’d seen tears streak her mask and his shirt as they’d lain together after a night of enduring men, high and low alike, directing their questions and praise to Chat and only Chat. He reaches over and places his hand over hers, stilling her nervous efforts.

“Our presence there would be symbolic,” he says, “a sign of goodwill from the Nobles to the people. We would not be voting or speaking on any matters. Neither of us.”

The news had been a relief for him; how he’d managed to avoid being locked down into the Estates General as both Adrien and Chat seemed a rare stroke of luck, but the deepening of Ladybug’s frown told him the sentiment isn’t shared. Anger, rather than sadness, touches at her face.

“Almost all of the members of the Estates were elected,” he adds. “We weren’t elected to attend, so it makes sense that we wouldn’t be involved in the discussions.”

Ladybug gives a slow nod, but doesn’t seem entirely convinced. She chews on her bottom lip.

“Do you think he really expects us to attend? The King?”

Chat shrugs. “He might. An invitation like this seems more like a formality. Or a way to capture us.”

Sighing, Chat clasps his hands behind his head and reclines back on the roof. It puts Ladybug above him, a view he’s always preferred.

“And as you know, I’m not one for formality _or_ imprisonment,” he continues. “The only thing worse than being locked up in the Bastille is being forced to listen to someone go on about taxes. Although perhaps they’d put us in the same cell. That would save us the hassle of sneaking around.”

Chat wags his eyebrows suggestively, running his eyes along her form. It’s somewhat successful: Ladybug offers a light chuckle and a wisp of a smile. She reaches down and brushes an errant strand of hair off his cheek. Even with gloves, her touch is soft. Resisting the thought of where else he’d like to feel that touch is near impossible. Instead, Chat distracts himself, plucking her hand from his cheek and drawing it to his lips. After all of this time, he’s still struck with a sense of wonder when her face and neck flush red from his affections. He can’t help it: rather than release Ladybug’s hand, he tugs at it until she concedes and lays down next to him. Nose-to-nose, they gaze at one another.

“I think I’d rather stick to the room at _Le Porte-Bonheur_ , if it’s all the same to you, _Chaton_ ,” she says, “If crawling through a window is the price I have to pay for a mattress and pillow, so be it. You can enjoy your jail cell on your own.”

He chuckles and leans in until their lips meet.

“I don’t care where I go,” he says as they part, “as long as it’s with you.”

* * *

Her father stirs. No sound is muffled by thin walls between her parent’s bedroom and the main room where she rolls her pallet out to sleep; Marinette hears her father’s waking groan and the beat of his heavy footfall. It’s been an hour or so since she’d returned from a night spent with Chat at _Le Porte-Bonheur_. She’s lucky Tom hadn’t woken then.

Tom pads past her to the door and heads down the stairs to the bakery. There’s more work to be done, and hours earlier. Bread must still be made, whether he was a delegate to the Estates General or not. Marinette isn’t sure how she’ll sneak out to Versaille every day while managing to cover her father’s work. But she’ll do it.

Underneath the edge of her pillow, Tikki stirs. The poor thing had been exhausted when they’d returned, and Marinette can’t help but feel for her, now that she’s being awoken again. Tikki worms her way out and curls against the back of Marinette’s neck.

“Marinette, why are you awake?” she whispers sleepily. “Don’t we have another hour or two?”

“Sorry, Tikki. Papa is up early to start the bread for the day. We don’t have to go yet - you can sleep some more.”

Tikki hums in assent. Enough time passes for Marinette to think the kwami has fallen back asleep, but then Tikki pipes up with a soft, “I know you’re worried Marinette, but you’ve got to follow your gut. Ladybug and Chat Noir are selected to appear when the world needs them most. You are here for a reason.”

“What are you saying?”

“Things are going to get bad soon. I can just feel it.”

She’s not surprised. On the contrary, Tikki putting a voice to the sick foreboding churning in her stomach is a relief. To know she wasn’t imagining it.

“What am I supposed to do, then, Tikki?”

“Do what’s right. It’s what Ladybug always does.”

“How do I know what’s right?”

Tikki does not answer. She nuzzles against Marinette’s skin, warm and close. Marinette isn’t sure if Tikki falls back asleep or not, but she finds herself staring at the wall opposite her until her mother wakes up and ushers her down to the bakery. That day, exhaustion weighs more than one-thousand loaves of bread at her back.

* * *

She’s late.

Chat paces back and forth, restlessly extending his baton back and forth. The façade of the hotel hides him from the men gathering below. They stream into the building, some pausing to shake hands or lean into low conversation. He recognizes a handful: André Bourgeois, the Prévôt des Marchands; Jacques Necker, Chief Minister to Louis XVI; and of course, his own father, vibrant robes billowing behind him, head of the _Parlement de Paris_. It can’t be much longer until the opening of the convention, and Ladybug is nowhere to be seen.

He sweeps the end of his baton against the roof. Sparks erupt from the contact. This is the last place he wants to be, but he’ll give her a few more minutes.

Finally, Ladybug appears over the edge of the roof a moment later. She’d scaled the back wall, and shakes out her skirts as she stands. Her lips quirk into a grin when she spots him, though it does little to quell the anxious fist in his gut. She hadn’t been smiling the last time they argued over attending the Estates General.

“I was beginning to think you might not come, My Lady.”

“Thinking, or hoping?”

Chat takes her hand and squeezes, pouring as much emotion into the grip as he can. He won’t be able to be to touch her once they are inside.

“If we’re really going to do this, we should go. They’re about to begin. Are you sure we’re really going to do this?”

The same resolute furrowing of brow and pursing of lips rises on her face as it did the last time they’d disagreed over her decision. He won’t push it, not now, not when they need to stand united in the eyes of some of the most influential in France. She nods.

“I’m ready.”

Chat’s already found their entry point, and leads the way. They climb down the side of the large meeting hall, slide through an exterior door on the second level, and walk down a narrow hallway devoid of people. How fortunate that Gabriel had dragged him out to Versailles and the hotel the day before. Chat leads them to their balcony seats with no intrusion. Two chairs, plain wood but sturdy. On the seat of one, a black cushion, on the other, red.

With the best smile he can muster, Chat takes the chair with the red cushion. Ladybug snorts and takes the other. They watch as the deputies find their seats below. The rumble of quiet conversation, amplified, fills the chamber, but the sound soon rises to a roar as people catch sight of them. It starts with pointing, then raised exclamations, and those who had been seated jump up to get a better view.

A large, hulking man - someone Chat thinks he might know - claps, and it ripples over the room, picking up momentum until the wave sweeps people out of their chairs and into overwhelming applause.

Chat glances to Ladybug. Her lips part in shock as she watches them with wide eyes.

“We should stand,” he murmurs.

He rises, and Ladybug follows. Chat bows to the men below, then turns to Ladybug and bows once more. She tips into an uncertain curtsy, and the applause turns explosive.

As Chat straightens, something catches eye. Though most of the chamber stands, a large block remains seated. The nobles and bishops of the First and Second Estates gaze up at them with impassive eyes. Amongst them all, a familiar face stands out in cold clarity. Gabriel Agreste stares at Ladybug, the barest of frowns at the corners of his mouth. It takes all of Chat’s will not to scoop her into his arms and spirit her away as fast as he can.  

* * *

The Estates-General assemblies remind Nino why he dislikes high society outside of the Agreste manor. Not that Gabriel and his staff are shining paragons of equality, but at least he’s regarded with some level of respect. But here, in the hallways that circle the meeting chamber, not even the influence of _Le Papillon_ is enough to rinse away the disdain that clings to the tongues of almost every attendant he waits with.

Nino wishes someone had explained to him, before he was sent from Haiti, that no longer being in chains did not necessarily mean being free.

The long hours between meals hammer at his temple; every break the delegates take is a blessing, for the men who spring into action to serve their Lords have something other than glaring Nino down to occupy their time. Their eyes on his back make his skin itch.

The sudden silence from the chamber is a welcome distraction. While not elected to attend the Estates General, the shouting over the last few days had been loud enough for the attendants to feel like they were participating, albeit with a door between them. Nino straightens.

“I believe the delegates are taking a break before the next session,” he announces.

The doors open, and he and the other attendants file into the chamber, while servants scatter to prepare carriages or procure a meal from the hotel kitchens.

Gabriel, a vibrant streak of purple in a sea of muted blues and pale greens, catches his eye the instant Nino crosses the threshold into the massive meeting room. Yet even as Nino steers through straits of seats and around small eddies of nobles in the aisles, his attention is pulled to the beacon that shines brightest, that cuts through the murk of ill-will weighing down the air of the assembly, rising from her seat in the upper balcony.

Nino can’t help it - he stares long enough to catch Ladybug’s eye, and dips into a bow. Her laughter doesn’t carry back to him, but he can see it in her smile and the quick rise and fall of her shoulders. He’s not the only one who watches her. Many of the men of the Third Estate, seated along the far end of the chamber, turn to stare. A few wave, some bow, others cheer. She is, after all, the true representative of the people. Weeks of near-regular attendance at the meetings have done little to inure the delegates of the lower class to the sight of their mystical hero. The whisperings he’s heard outside of the chamber and on the streets agree that the people don’t care that Ladybug can’t vote, that she has no say in the proceedings; her presence itself is being heralded as a victory.

The seat at her side, however, has sat vacant for days. Nino’s heard enough comments on Chat Noir’s absence to sour his stomach. The harsh rumors - that Chat Noir had little care for the decisions that affected the public, that he was likely a noble, bored by such an important meeting - worry Nino with their veracity. Only on three occasions in the past four weeks has Adrien been called to take his father’s seat in court, but Chat Noir hasn’t been seen at the assembly since the first week.

“Distracted, Nino?”

The voice slices straight through his thoughts. Habit, drilled into his bones, is all that keeps Nino from startling; he turns to Gabriel in one smooth motion and bows his head, offering a level, “Apologies, Sir. Shall I prepare a table for you at the hotel, or do you plan on heading back to the manor before the next session resumes?”

“She is certainly a compelling figure,” Gabriel continues. “Perhaps if our esteemed counterparts in the Third Estate paid our tax negotiations as much mind as they did her, we would have reached an end to all this… acrimonious discord.”

Nino shoves his first reaction deep under his tongue.

“The hotel then, my Lord?”

Something must give him away - the tightness of his jaw or the quickness of his words; Gabriel looks Nino over with a dry chuckle.

“An admirer of hers, Nino?” He doesn’t let him respond, instead turning towards the wide chamber doors and letting his, “The hotel will do,” trail behind him.

Nino doesn’t have the luxury of time to analyze Gabriel’s meaning. He sets off at a brisk walk, past Gabriel and into the hallway. Glancing back, Nino sees him pause to talk to Andre Bourgeois. The barrel-chested man cranes his neck to listen as Gabriel speaks in hushed tones.

Despite holding perhaps the most prestigious office in the city, Bourgeois looks more like a pup, squirming and excited to receive Gabriel’s attention. As if Nino hadn’t been feeling uneasy enough.

Nino cuts down the hallway to the main body of the hotel. If he didn’t have a job to fulfill, he would be more content to stand back and observe the two men. Maybe Alya was rubbing off on him.

The maitre’d greets Nino with a sniff, yet nonetheless orders a table for Gabriel.

Bourgeois, Gabriel, and a bishop Nino recognizes by face, but not name, arrive minutes later. He escorts them to the table, takes a step back, and waits to be needed.

It’s over the first course that conversation strays from pleasantries.

“I have to say, it’s shameful, just shameful, how little has been done since the start of the assembly.”

The words sound so much like Gabriel that Nino does a double-take when he realizes they fell from the lips of M. Bourgeois. The bishop sucks his teeth and nods.

“How long has it been now?” he says. “Three, four weeks? And we’ve yet to come to even an agreement on representation, let alone taxes.”

“It’s like they want people to starve in the streets,” Gabriel says, voice mild.

“ _Commoners_ ,” Bourgeois says. It comes out a low hiss, scarcely perceptible even to Nino. Nino glances to the tables at each side of them, but no one else seems to have noticed Bourgeois’ condemnation.

“Most of them refuse to realize what’s best,” Bourgeois continues. “They lack the big picture. Am I supposed to believe that some back-alley baker understands the intricacies of trade and taxation? It’s taken me years to learn the ins and outs of the system!”

“Yet another reason,” Gabriel says, “that it’s vital we remain a unified institution. We cannot back down against the demands of those who do not understand how damaging changing the current system would truly be. Should we lose ground against the question of representation, we will surely find ourselves slaves to the whims of the *people* on every other matter.”

“We can’t back down,” the bishop echoes. “Not to the King, not to the mindless in the streets. I’ll do all that I can to persuade my fellows of the same.”

“We have to do something,” Andre says.

“It’s for the best,” Gabriel says.

“For the best,” both men repeat.


	2. Blanc

_Gabriel Agreste may call himself Le Papillon, yet he is anything but. The man is a locust, and France will starve by him. A venomous snake in a crowd, his poison spreads when he bares his fangs. Not a soul will go untouched by his evil endeavors if he continues unopposed in Paris._

— Essais Revolutionnaires, La Voix. 

* * *

 

Nowadays, it feels like all Adrien does is pace.

Back and forth in his room, waiting for blistering summer day to fade into cool night. Around and around at night on a rooftop, hoping that this patrol will be better than the last, that the first words from Ladybug’s lips will be something other than “Today at the Estates-” or “Would you believe, what _Le Papillon_ is saying now?” And now, scuffing a circle into the carpet outside of _Le Papillon’s_ office, Adrien finds himself caught in the same, torturous loop.

He would still rather be vaulting across the city in tense silence with Ladybug than waiting on his father. A servant had brought Gabriel’s summons over half an hour ago, but the door to his office remains firmly shut. Adrien has taken to counting his laps, pausing only when his father’s voice drifts by.

“…ancient institution of representation should be preserved.”

Whatever speech Gabriel has been practicing, for the Estates, Adrien assumes, it sounds as though it’s coming to a close.

“…for the betterment of the economy, the kingdom, and most urgently, the people.”

Adrien stops once more. The phrase wheels over him, like a vulture, honing in on its prey. It’d driving him mad. _The people_. Ladybug and his father have thrown the words around so often in the past month that Adrien is beginning to think that perhaps they mean something else entirely. There’s a small comfort, at least, in the fact that he’s managed to avoid attending most of the Estates-General. From Nino’s reports, it’s been nothing but bickering.

The door swings open, and Nino steps out. His back is to the man within, and his voice betrays nothing of the deep frown on his face as he says, “Your father will see you now.”

Adrien raises an eyebrow and glances down at Nino’s white-knuckled fists, but Nino gives the slightest shake of his head and steps aside. It puts Adrien on edge. He enters anyway.

“Father?”

Unlike Nino, Gabriel seems his usual paragon of composure. His eyes scan a paper on his desk a moment longer before he rolls it up into a neat scroll and sets it aside. Every motion belies control.

“Ah, Adrien. I wanted to discuss your return to University this fall. I’ve received communication from one of the lecturers about…”

Whatever had Nino so upset, Adrien does not appear to be subject to. So, Adrien listens. He does. But listening still allows his mind to wander, and soon enough, his mind has wandered to a distant rooftop and a girl he hopes will want to talk of something other than politics tonight.

* * *

She does not.

* * *

Ladybug stares up into the uneasy still of night. At her side, the uneven rise and fall of Chat’s chest tells her that he’s not fallen asleep either.

“Chat,” Ladybug whispers.

“My Lady, let’s rest. We don’t have much longer before we have to go; I’d much rather spend my time in your presence in peace.”

It’s been like this for weeks. Patrols stretch taut like a rope frayed to its last fibers, and the few hours they spend together afterwards, tucked away in a room rented under a name neither bears, do little to cut the tension. Most nights, Chat feigns sleep, and others, like tonight, he forces sentiment.

“Chat, you should come back to the assembly,” she presses. “Something is going to happen. I can just tell. Something big that we need to be there for.”

He won’t argue with her about it, not again. So he shrugs a little and tries to keep his voice light.

“Well, that’s certainly news. It sounded to me like there’s quite a lot of nothing happening amongst our fair representatives. You know how much I love inaction and arguing.”

Chat rolls over to face her, slinging an arm around her waist. They’re close, touching, but she can’t shake the sensation that she isn’t reaching him.

“Come, tomorrow.”

“I’ll come tonight, if you insist.”

The joke that, weeks ago, might have made her blush and press her lips to his, falls flat in the narrow crevice between their bodies.

“Chat…”

“Fine. Anything for you, my love.”

It doesn’t feel like a victory.

* * *

Outside, the air tightens its sweltering coils around the neck, leaving every last soul gasping for breath.

Inside, there is a different kind of breathlessness. A mausoleum-still grips the entire convening, the likes of which Chat has not felt in years. Ladybug sits at his side, her hands balled in her lap.

Andre Bourgeois is the first to stand. The very voice of the man is exhausting, as it has been to Chat for years, but as his attention shifts away from Bourgeois’s words, he notices just how riveted his Lady is with the proceedings. He can’t imagine how she’s kept such focus for so many days on end. Ladybug wasn’t wrong, though: as boring as each sound that falls from Bourgeois’s lips may be, the tension that smothers the room makes her prediction clear. There is something stirring under the stillness. Something waiting to strike.

Chat looks from face to face, gauging the crowd, trying to find the source. His father, seated near the head of the room, reveals nothing in the way he fixes his stare on Bourgeois. The longer Chat watches the chamber, though, the more movement he catches. From many of the clergy, the barest of nods at the end of each sentence. Whispers, impossible to hear in the balcony above, between the nobles. The men representing the people vibrate in their seats, twitching, shuffling, and glancing from Bourgeois to a large man seated towards the front of the Third Estate’s section.

That’s when Chat hears it.

“A representation that is fair, balanced, and for the betterment of the economy, the kingdom, and most urgently, the people.”

His father’s words spill from Bourgeois’s mouth.

The air shifts, and a sour taste sticks to Chat’s tongue. The hush that follows is anything but: over one thousand men break into one thousand muttered conversations as Bourgeois takes his seat. Some of the delegates on the Third Estate side begin to rise, only to be dragged back down by the neighbors. The looks directed at the large man turn to nodding and pointing. Something about the man pricks Chat’s memory.

“What are they…?” Ladybug hisses. Concern replaces the intense concentration on her face.

Her teeth tear at her bottom lip as the man rises.

Everything about him is colossal, from his wide shoulders to his giant hands. The paper he clutches shakes in his grip like the smallest sliver of a leaf caught in a hurricane. He starts to speak, pauses, coughs, and starts again.

“We, the deputies elected to represent the Third Estate-”

His voice is unexpected in its softness, how it quivers over the attentive silence of the chamber.

“A body composed of the people of the nation, rich and poor alike, working under the ancient au-” he pauses, squinting at the paper, “auspices of our brothers in the First and Second Estates, do stand on this day, the Seventeenth of June, to make a declaration.”

He reads with halting slowness. The entire delegation leans in as one.

“I, Tomas Dupain, have been selected to state a series of gr-grievances levied in response to the proposals of the deputies of the First and Second Estates.”

Dupain - that’s where Chat knows the man from. The baker, the best in the city, whose daughter delivered bread to the Agreste manor each morning.

“We were summoned by Our King Louis XIV to reach an agreement on taxation throughout the country. Instead, this council has de-devolved to bickering over how each estate’s vote should be represented. Despite promises that the vote of every man in this gathering would be weighed equally, those who represent only the smallest portion of the population insist on keeping an ancient repressive system that only feeds their greed.”

That’s when the shouting starts. It comes from all sides - shouts of support from the men behind Tom, sharp protests from those at the front of the chamber. Tom’s shoulders slump. His eyes stay glued to the paper, and his lips keep moving, but there’s too much clamor for him to be heard over.

Ladybug stands and grips the balcony railing tight as she leans over. Her features are pale and hard, the face of a marble angel overlooking a grave.

“Ladybug?” he whispers.

“They need to listen to him,” she mutters. “Why aren’t they listening?”

The cacophony intensifies. Chat looks back and forth between Ladybug and Tom, watches as the distress in her expression grows alongside Dupain’s. Tom’s eyes rove around the chamber. More men shout, arguing across the wide chamber floor. He squares his shoulders. The paper is Tom’s hand is crushed in one meaty fist. He takes a deep breath.

“We have tried to goodwill and peace. We came to this meeting with hopes of settling our differences and getting things done!” Tom’s booming voice explodes over the chamber, silencing the shouts. “And instead, you’ve spat in our faces and said nothing should change. That we should keep dying because you like your luxuries. Enough!”

Over one thousand strong, the deputies of the Third Estate rise, row after row, like a wave building in the sea.

“If you will not take on the responsibility of protecting the realm, then we will. The decision has been made to create a new assembly, one made by and for the people, not the Estates.”

Tom steps down from where he’s stood, and moves to the middle of the chamber.

“I am honored to declare the formation of the National Assembly. We invite you to join us, but will no longer wait for your debates and deliberations.”

Applause explodes from the men behind him. Red-faced and raw with exertion, Tomas Dupain leaves no doubt in Chat’s mind as to why he was chosen to speak.

The men below are not the only ones who clap. Ladybug, still standing, applauds as if begging an encore. There’s a fierceness in her face that sparks heat in his belly and drops ice down his spine: Chat wants to feel her fire against his body; once more he wants to hide her away from those who watch her enthusiastic response with cold eyes.

“My Lady-”

His father’s voice tears through the ruckus, a sudden crash of thunder.

“This chamber,” Gabriel shouts, “is the meeting place for the deputies of the Estates General.”

Gabriel Agreste looks as unflappable and calm as ever, but his voice breaks and buckles in anger. The chamber does not go silent, but the shouts dim to uneasy mutterings as all turn to listen to _Le Papillon_.

“As such,” he continues, “no other assembly may hold the floor or convene in this location. Barring a return to rational thought and a rejoining of the sanctioned delegation, all members of this proposed _National Assembly_ shall be removed from the premises immediately.”

“Bastard,” Ladybug hisses. Chat glances from Gabriel, to Ladybug, to Tom: all three sport matching scowls.

Chat finds himself glancing around the balcony, peering into darkened corners, looking for any sign that there might be someone just beyond the balcony door. His father had a knack for picking up information meant to be kept secret. At the very least, Ladybug would get them both thrown in jail. They’d hardly been the darlings of the nobles and clergy before, and her constant presence and clear bias will do little to endear them further.

“Save your energy, _Papillon_! We’ll remove ourselves.”

Tom’s exclamation is met with another round of cheers - Ladybug’s high cry goes up in the mix - but Chat tunes out what follows, instead planning their escape. Chat isn’t willing to stay and risk the nobles turning on them, nor does it help them to be seen leaving alongside the National Assembly. Their normal exit - out the door, down the hallway, and off the wide external balcony - is too public.

He spots a heavy curtain on the far side of the wide balcony. If it was on an exterior wall, it might be…

Chat grabs Ladybug’s wrist and pulls her away from the rail. Surprised, Ladybug is yanked along for a few feet before she digs her heels in and stops them both.

“Chat, what are you doing? We need to get down there, to be with them!”

He tugs her again, trying to usher her towards the curtain.

“No, Bug, we need to get out of here before Papillon decides we’d look good in a prison cell for, I don’t know, inciting a revolution.”

Ladybug doesn’t budge. She rips her hand from his grip and anchors both fists on her hips.

“What they’re doing down there is important. We can’t run away from what’s happening!”

He knows his father. Agreeing with the Assembly is supporting the enemy, and that’s near treason in Gabriel’s narrow book. Treason is prison, and prison is discovery, and discovery is an end to Ladybug and Chat Noir. Chat won’t chance it, not for whatever is going on below.

“What they’re doing down there?” he asks. “What do they even think they’re doing down there? Is that really how they think they’re going to get anything done? By splitting off and refusing to compromise?”

The words feel wrong the moment they’re spoken, but there’s no taking them back. Ladybug’s face hardens. Her hand settles on her badalore.

“Compromise? People are starving in the streets while the _Noblesse_ get fat in their mansions, and you think we’re going to _compromise_  over unfair representation?”

Chat gapes at her, thoughts evaporating at the ice in her voice and the threat in her hand.

“No- that’s not- it isn’t-”

He takes a step back, and then another, and he doesn’t turn his back as he reaches for the curtain and pulls it aside. Sunlight streams through the rippled glass window.

“We need to go,” he says.

“You want to just slink out like- like alley cats?” she huffs.

“That’s _exactly_  what I want, My Lady.”

“I’m not going.”

“Don’t be obstinate.”

“We can’t leave this! We can’t leave them!”

“We’re going. It’s not safe for us to stay if _Le Papillon_  even _thinks_  we’re supporting the Assembly. Let’s get out of here, go to the inn, and talk this over.”

She opens her mouth, readying protests, but he cuts her off. It’s unfair, he knows, but he doesn’t give her a chance to argue - he won’t win if he does.

“ _Cataclysme_ ,” Chat whispers.

One finger, swirling with black power, slides down the window. It crumbles to fine sand.

“I don’t have much time,” he says, looking to the side to avoid Ladybug’s glare, “so I am leaving. I will recharge my transformation and be at the inn in less than an hour. Please, Ladybug, meet me there.”

He hopes it’s enough to force her hand. Chat ducks out the ruined window, and runs.

* * *

She shouldn’t have come.

Livid, Ladybug can’t sit still. She sits down on the bed. Gets up. Stomps around. Glances at the window. Stares at her reflection in the water basin. Repeats the cycle again, to the tempo of her heart as it ricochets in her ears.

It’s been less than half an hour since she fled Versailles, and she has time to leave before Chat arrives. It would be simple: detransform, lock the room, and go downstairs and share a meal with Alya. Chat Noir could go down to the tavern, look her in the eye, and be never the wiser. At least down in the tavern, warm and bustling with working folk after a long day, Ladybug would be with those who understood. She wouldn’t have to fight this coming fight.

Chat Noir, with his fine speech and practiced grace. Chat Noir, well-read and refined. She wouldn’t be surprised if his father had been in the Estates chamber as well that afternoon. No doubt _his_  father sat opposite hers. No doubt _his_  father stayed when hers left.

“I didn’t think you’d actually be here.”

Ladybug startles and whips around. Chat slides through the window and drops silently into the room.

“I don’t know why I am,” she says. “I don’t know why I listened to you and left, or why I-”

Chat crosses the room in three long steps, takes her by the shoulders, and crushes his lips to hers. His chest heaves as he kisses away both air and argument. His hands slide from her shoulders to her waist, drawing her flush against him. There’s a desperation to him, from the hard bite of his teeth at her bottom lip, to the moan ripped from his throat when her tongue slides against his.

Her body reacts first. It’s been weeks since he’s held her like this, weeks since they’ve kissed and meant it. Her fingers find the waist of his breeches as his begin to ruck up her skirt. After a year of spending every other night with her body pressed to his, she’d felt his absence. It’s almost enough to make her give in, to have him again, to know all is right.

But it isn’t, and they aren’t, and the need low in her belly screams at her as she flattens her hands over his chest and pushes him away.

“No, _Chaton_.”

Wide, green eyes glow in the dim room. He reaches out for her again, but she steps back and shakes her head.

“We can’t just kiss and make it better,” she says. “You’re not going to distract me to try and avoid what happened.”

His shoulders slump, and he rubs the back of his neck. Chat hangs his head, fixing his gaze on his feet.

“That wasn’t my intent, My Lady. When I left, all I could do was hope you’d have some sense and leave. The only thing going through my head was that you’d be stubborn, and stay, and wind up arrested, in jail somewhere.” He glances up, expression pleading. “Do you know what Gabriel Agreste is capable of? If he got to you?”

She bristles at his words, the clear distress on his face doing nothing to soften her resolve.

“It sounds like you’re more worried about _Le Papillon_ than anything else,” she scoffs. “So you can be concerned about him, but not care about what just happened at the Estates General? You can run off with no concern about the fate of the people of this city, of France?”

Chat prowls one side of the room as she speaks, and keeps his hands tightly folded at his back.

“I care about _you_ , Ladybug,” he says. His tail whips back and forth. “I care about us. And I’m not going to sit by and watch you risk your life over some petty political conflict.”

He comes to a hard stop and pierces her with a stare. “In a few weeks’ time,” he continues, “this whole thing will be resolved and swept under the rug, and the world will be back to normal. I’m not losing you, or our freedom, to some fleeting sentiment.”

His words roar in her ears, batter at her from all sides. Ladybug blinks, as if she could clear this sudden stranger from her vision and restore him to Chat. The man in front of her remains, and it infuriates her.

“Fleeting-? Sentiment?” she gasps, stepping forward. “You call yourself a protector of this city, but do you even pay attention to what’s going on right under your nose?”

She gives his nose a hard tap as she speaks; he tenses at the touch and wrenches his head to the side. Crowded this close to him, Ladybug can feel the irritation that crackles off his skin. She hopes he can feel hers.

“The people are _angry_ , Chat, and have been for years. This isn’t going to get better overnight. We have a responsibility to fight with the common people against these injustices! We can’t sit by and let the rich have their way!”

Chat backs away from her until he’s right up against the window. Framed by the late afternoon light, shadow sweeps over him. As if his mask had overtaken his face, only his eyes glow out.

“It’s my responsibility to keep the city safe. And revolts and rising up in the streets aren’t safe.”

“So you’ll just let the nobles have their way?”

He clicks his tongue. “I didn’t say that-”

“You’ll just roll over and do whatever _Le Papillon_ wants?” She doesn’t care if someone else hears them - her voice rises, trembles.

“Listen, Ladybug-”

Her hand slices through the air, cutting him off with a gesture.

“Go. Get out,” she says, voice cold. “I can’t stand looking at you right now.”

His jaw drops, mouth working for words.

“This is-”

“ _Go_.”

“You’re being foolish and naive. Use your head and _think_  about this for a change.”

She says nothing. From the way he pales, Chat seems to know the wrongness of his words. But he doesn’t yield, nor does he apologize.

Ladybug has known Chat for almost two years. She knows the strength of his arms around her waist when they vault to the top of Notre Dame; she knows the heat and pressure of him inside of her; and, as she looks at him now, climbing out the window without a backwards glance, she can’t help but think that perhaps she doesn’t know him at all.

She does not cry. She stares at the window, clenches her fists, and releases her transformation, but Marinette does not cry.

Instead, she goes downstairs, as she should have before Chat had even showed up.

The murmur of voices is a welcome comfort. Meat, wine, hay, and sweat blend in the air, so familiar, it aches. She steers past the crowded tables towards the bar.

There’s a crowd gathered around one corner of the bar - mostly young tradesmen, though a few grey heads stand out - but the voice that rises from the middle of them is rich and female. Marinette makes her way over to where Alya holds court.

“No doubt,” her voice rings out, “The King will come out in the next few days begging for the National Assembly to return. If _Le Papillon_ hasn’t crushed what’s left of Louis’ spine, we might have a chance at negotiation.”

Marinette taps the shoulder of one of the men, the red-headed painter’s apprentice, Nathanaël. He turns and lights up in a smile the moment he sees her.

“Marinette, good to see you. How is your fa-”

“Nathanaël, are you keeping my love from me?”

The small crowd parts as Alya rushes over to Marinette. She bumps Nathanaël out of the way with a hip, then smiles and flutters her eyelashes at him before wrapping Marinette in an embrace.

“Sorry, brothers, you’ll have to excuse me.”

A mixed chorus of chuckles and groans marks the end of the group, and the men all meander back to their tables as Alya steers Marinette back behind the bar. Marinette finds something to keep herself busy with while Alya pours wine for patrons and tends to her tavern. Only once everyone else seems occupied does Alya come back, plucks at a few tangles terrorizing Marinette’s hair, and says, “Oh, _cherie_. A bit of a lover’s quarrel?”

Marinette slumps over the basin where she was washing dishes.

“Yes? No? Yes. But it feels a lot bigger than that, Alya.”

Alya sets her hands on her hips, expression dark.

“Do I have to skin a certain black cat?”

Despite herself, Marinette chuckles. “Could you?”

“Well, if the Lady insists, I’m sure I could get my hands on him.”

Alya twist a washrag taut in her hands, and looses it on the counter with a loud thwack. Those at the bar startle, but Marinette cracks a smile.

“I don’t doubt it,” she says, shaking her head. “But no, it’s- I’ll take care of it.”

Marinette straightens and starts back at the dishes once more, feeling a hair lighter.

“Nino misses you, by the way,” she continues. “When I’ve seen him at the Estates, it looks like he’s practically wasting away without you.”

“He certainly acted like it, last time he visited,” Alya raises her eyebrows, then laughs as Marinette blushes at her suggestion. “But, I suppose I miss him, too. Him, and all of his delicious inside information. And maybe those dumb brown eyes of his.”

It’s nice, for once, to consider someone else’s relationship. At least her best friends could be happy.

“Speaking of Nino-” Alya begins. She takes a long, casual look around the tavern, then pulls a sealed letter from her apron and hands it to Marinette. Marinette tucks it away quickly, also watching for any curious eyes.

“Next time you see him,” Alya continues, “tell him to let his printer friend know that, with the formation of the Assembly, he can expect more essays from _La Voix_.”

Marinette shakes her head and smiles.

“I can’t believe you chose such a dumb penname,” Marinette mutters. “I’ll pass along the message.”

“Look, you can be Ladybug, Gabriel Agreste can be _Le Papillon_ , I’ll stick to _La Voix_. I refuse to join in on the insect swarm.”

“I don’t know, Alya, from what I hear about the _La Voix_ papers, you might be better off calling yourself _The Wasp_.”

“What a stinging remark!” Alya exclaims.

Alya circles around her, jabbing at her shoulders and back with her fingers and making little buzzing noises the whole time. Marinette laughs, the first good thing to come up from her gut in a long time. With Alya, she almost feels normal, like the world hasn’t upended itself around her. Their laughter subsides as a pair of men come to the bar ordering food and drink. Marinette makes herself useful, pouring wine as Alya trots back to the kitchen and returns with two cups of soup and a meager hunk of bread. One of the men quirks a rueful grin at the miniscule meal; Alya shrugs.

“Speaking of _La Voix_ ,” Alya says once the men retreat to their table, “did you read the most recent pamphlet?”

She side-eyes Alya and raises an eyebrow.

“I can’t, remember?”

“Right, sorry. Maybe if _someone_  weren’t out saving Paris all of the time, I could teach them more than a handful of letters.”

“I happen to like the handful of letters I know, thank you very much,” she mutters darkly.

Alya had taught her the important ones first: _A-C-H-I-N-O-R and T_.

“You’re going to need them all when loverboy finally sweeps you off your feet and into his no doubt rich and luxurious lifestyle.”

“That’s not happening anytime soon.”

The emptiness of the room above her head leaves a hollow pit below her ribs. From the corner of her eye, she sees Alya open her mouth, ready to ask. A stroke of luck: Nathanaël chooses that moment to come up to the bar.

“Alya,” he starts, “M-Marinette. I wanted to, well…”

Nathanaël trails off, shoulders hunching as he leans over the bar. A faint blush crosses his cheeks when he glances up at Marinette, but his low voice is certain when his focus shifts to Alya.

“There’s a rumor that you know how to get in touch with Ladybug.”

“Pure farce, absolute rumor,” Alya says. She sticks up her nose and waves him away with a hand, but Nathanaël’s not to be deterred. He fishes a scrap of paper from his pocket and slides it across the bar.

“Right, of course. Well, in the _unlikely_  chance that someone _does_  know how to reach Ladybug, there is a meeting in a few nights that many would be interested in her attending. Some deputies from the Assembly will be there, but mostly tradesmen and some others from the community.”

Alya reaches for the paper and starts to turn it over, but Nathanaël puts a hand over hers.

“The time and address are… private. You’re welcome to attend,” he says hurriedly, in response to the storm behind Alya’s glare, “It’s just… unwise for some information to be shared so publicly. But if you could… pass it along.”

With a snort, Alya tucks the paper in her sleeve in one discrete motion, then waves Nathanaël off once more.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she says, airily.

Nathanaël chuckles and says his thanks. He heads back to his table, and enters back into conversation with bowed head.

The slip of paper doesn’t come up until late in the evening, as Marinette is helping Alya close up the tavern. She knows she’s in for a scolding when she gets home, for being out so late, but the need to know wins out. The last dish is put on the shelf before Alya pulls the paper from her sleeve and says, in a flat voice, “Oh, how am I ever going to get this to Ladybug?”

“I’ll help!” Marinette says.

She twirls over to Alya, plucks the paper out from between her fingers, and unfolds it. Her brow scrunches as she peers at the letters, wishing she could prod them into place until they made sense, but the longer she looks, the more the letters seem to swim and scatter before her. Pouting, she passes it back over to Alya.

Alya reads the address with ease, twice, and waits for Marinette to repeat it back for her. The location is easier to track down than expected - the shop of the man Nathanaël apprenticed to. The slip of paper is tossed in the fireplace, curling to ash in the dying flames.

“Do you think Ladybug will show up?” Alya asks.

“Yeah. I think she will.”

* * *

Marinette sets a cloth over the last bowl of dough, then wipes her flour-covered hands on her apron. Her back aches and sleep nips at her eyes, but she turns to her mother and says, “I’m going over to Alya’s to help at the tavern.”

Sabine looks up from her pastry dough she’s preparing and sighs. The glow of the setting sun casts the worry on her face in deep shadow. She glances over to Tom, who shrugs and turns back to the ovens.

“Fine. Just be careful, Marinette. You know how I feel about you being on the streets at dusk. It’s not as safe as it used to be.”

“You worry too much, _Maman_. I’ll be fine, and besides, Ladybug or Chat Noir will be out on patrol.”

That doesn’t seem to comfort Sabine, but she doesn’t protest.

“Go quickly, before it gets too dark. Send Alya my love.”

Marinette presses a kiss to her mother’s cheek, bids her father good night, and hurries out of the bakery. She crosses the street at a quick clip. Most people are turning in, shuttering their shops and returning home, but more than a few men still gather on the sides of the street, talking in low voices. Her mother wasn’t wrong - there’d been more unrest in the city, especially since the end of the Estates-General, but Marinette was more than capable of handling it. She was, after all, part of said unrest.

Once out of sight of the bakery, Marinette ducks into an empty alleyway.

“Tikki,” she whispers.

The tiny kwami slips from her pocket, and floats at eye level.

“Ready?” Marinette asks.

Tikki gives her a series of slow blinks in reply. The expression on Tikki’s face mirrors that of her mother’s: concern.

“I don’t think this is a good idea, Marinette,” she finally says.

“Come on, Tikki, we’ve already done this plenty of times before. This will be the, what, fourth meeting Ladybug has attended? We can’t stop now.”

Tikki shakes her head, and puffs up her chest. “We shouldn’t go. I’ve got a bad feeling about it all.”

“But we _have to_! Tonight is when they’re planning tomorrow’s first raid, and we can’t miss it.”

“Marinette. You’re passionate about what’s happening, and that’s good - Ladybug should be passionate about defending the weak, the innocent. But Ladybug is not a symbol of violence, and these raids - on military outposts! - mean nothing but violence. People could get hurt or die.”

With a grunt, Marinette pulls a hand through her hair. She’d felt Tikki’s uneasiness before, but not once before had she spoken out against going to the meetings.

“That’s why I need to be there,” Marinette says. “To keep people from getting hurt.”

“Ladybug’s presence will only escalate things,” Tikki argues. “You can’t deny that.”

“But this is important!”

Marinette stifles the urge to stamp her foot - she’s eighteen, not a child, and she’s not going to throw a tantrum - but frustration nonetheless rockets into each limb. She and Chat have gone in circles around this conversation; adding Tikki to the mix makes her head hurt.

“What’s important,” Tikki says calmly, “is that you’re ready to protect what’s right when it’s time. This is not right, and this isn’t the time.”

It stings. Tikki’s rejection claws down her throat and into her chest. But Marinette has a purpose, has somewhere to be, and she won’t be stopped.

“Tikki,” she growls. “Transform me.”

There’s no familiar wash of glowing light. Her hair stays in its plaits, her skirt stays its faded blue. Disappointment, confusion, rush over her instead of power. Tikki crosses her arms and shakes her head.

“No. I won’t allow it.”

Marinette balls her fists and turns her back to Tikki. Ice settles in her gut and radiates out, chilling her skin.

“Then I’ll go on my own.”

“I figured you would,” Tikki’s voice warbles sadly. She swoops up and nuzzles against Marinette’s cheek, but Marinette stares straight ahead. Tikki tucks herself back in her apron pocket. Despite the warmth at her side, Marinette feels alone.

* * *

Once Adrien starts looking, he can’t stop seeing it. Each patrol bears witness to Ladybug’s words; each patrol puts him face-to-face with the hungry eyes of someone driven to desperation, to theft or violence committed on an empty stomach. There’s no escape outside the mask, either. At first he thought perhaps his father intended to take their carriage through the poorest parts of Paris - a lesson, maybe, in appreciation. But as he catches a glimpse of another child, skeletal, curled under rags, on the corner, it becomes apparent that almost every part of Paris was the poorest part of Paris. His stomach twists. How much had he eaten for breakfast that morning? More than that child would all day.

The carriage shudders to a stop.

Adrien tears his gaze from the child and looks to his father who, for the first time since the ride began, glances up from his papers. Gabriel frowns.

“Nino?” he calls sharply.

It’s the carriage driver who replies. “Some kinda hold up, M. Agreste. Street’s blocked, can’t get through on the side streets either.”

Sighing, Gabriel pushes open the carriage door and begins to lean out. Nino appears in an instant, hands at the door, and begins pushing it closed. Under his dark skin, he is sickly pale.

“It would be best to stay in the carriage, Sir,” he says. His eyes dart to something outside that Adrien cannot see. Adrien leans back, trying to get a look, but Nino steps in, filling the gap with his body.

“There’s trouble in the streets, and you both would be safest turning back around. I would recommend drawing the blinds.”

Nino’s voice wavers; Adrien sees the signs of his composure fraying in the way his nails dig into the wood of the carriage door and his tendons stand out from his neck. Nino can’t even keep his eyes on the two of them, too distracted by whatever is going on in the streets.

Gabriel sets his papers down on the seat between them and sighs once more.

“Please step aside, Nino.”

“But, Sir-”

“Unless you care to tell me what’s _really_  going on,” Gabriel says.

For a moment, Nino looks like he’s going to slam the door shut in Gabriel’s face. Instead, he swallows hard and says, “It’s a raid, Sir. A large group is plundering one of the military posts up ahead. They’re taking food and weapons.”

Adrien has never seen his father move so quickly: Gabriel shoves past Nino and leaps from the carriage. He does not stop as Nino calls for him. Worry marring his face, Nino slumps forward and clings to the door to stay upright.

“I should go out there,” Adrien says, scooting towards the door.

“You should _not_ ,” Nino says. His voice lowers as he continues, “There’s no way you can transform into Chat Noir without getting caught, and this is the last place Adrien Agreste needs to be.”

“You said they’re taking food?”

Nino nods. “And weapons. It could get violent.”

“Then I need to be there.”

“You’re just putting yourself at risk, Adrien,” Nino protests, but he steps aside nonetheless. “At least put this on,” he says, slipping off his jacket and offering it to him. “Agreste indigo will stick out in a crowd.”

Adrien shrugs off his coat and puts Nino’s on. Sliding out of the carriage, he looks towards where a large crowd of people have gathered. The air is heavy with shouting, and punctuated by the sudden crack of gunfire as someone - a soldier, he thinks - lets out a warning shot. Nino sticks to his side, muttering under his breath as they head towards the crowd.

The group is mostly men, though he spots some women on the outer edges looking more like spectators than participants. Half of the men are armed, their pitchforks, clubs, and batons raised against a cluster of soldiers who, despite their guns and bayonets, are unable to stop what is happening. Behind the armed men, people rush in and out of the outpost building, entering with empty hands and exiting laden with heavy sacks of food and large boxes of ammunition. Another group meets them at the foot of a large wagon, and haul the goods up to waiting hands on the wagon. The men grunt under the weight and urgency of the task.

On the bed of the wagon, a woman helps load up supplies and arranges them with such strength and ease that she almost appears to be dancing. Her pale blue skirts have been tied at her knees, freeing up her movement, and two messy, black braids wind out from a red kerchief. She tosses a sack of flour to the back of the wagon, straightens, and wipes sweat from her brow.

“Brothers, tonight we eat!” she cries out over the crowd.

“We fight!” the men call back. “We feast!”

“If they won’t listen to our words-”

“They’ll listen to our fists!” the crowd shouts.

The soldiers back away as the group, reinvigorated, double their efforts. Adrien blinks, unable to tear his gaze from the woman on the wagon. He knows the voice, knows her face, beyond a shadow of a doubt. She’s striking, beautiful.

The baker’s daughter.

“Nino, is that-”

“ _Merde_. No, no, no - idiot! What in the world is she doing?”

The panic in Nino’s voice makes him turn. He looks paler than ever, fixated on the woman just as Adrien had been.

“You know her?” Adrien asks, but his question is drowned out by a cry that rises from the crowd and the sound of horse hooves pounding across stone. He and Nino turn as one.

A line of massive horses, each carrying a heavily-armed police officer, charges towards the crowd. The chief of police leads the pack of barrelling beasts. Adrien reacts first, grabbing Nino by the wrist and joining scattering bystanders to avoid getting trampled. In the midst of the panic, Adrien catches a glimpse of purple in the crowd - his father.

Many in the raiding mob stand firm, dropping their cargo and picking up weapons, forming a defiant line against the police. Horses rear back, kicking at but not striking the men on the front line of the plunderers. The baker’s daughter shouts something, but her words get lost. Nino is tugging at him, begging him to follow him down a sidestreet, to get away, but Adrien, frozen, watches his father. With surprising speed, Gabriel cuts through the crowd and leaps onto the back of the wagon. The woman stumbles back, surprised, but recovers quickly. She surges forward and slams her fist into Gabriel’s cheek.

Gabriel lands on bed of the wagon on his back. The woman lifts her foot, but he reacts faster, kicking out and knocking her off her feet. She catches herself on her hands, but her fall is enough for Gabriel to gain the upper hand: he throws an arm over her back and pins her down on her belly.

“Roger!” Gabriel shouts. “Here!”

As the police chief turns his horse to plow through the crowd, Gabriel strains to keep the woman down. She wrestles against his grip and lands a sharp elbow into Gabriel’s gut. He recoils, and it’s all she needs to slip and kick away.

“No!” Nino yells.

She doesn’t see it in time. Roger, baton raised, slams the butt-end of it into the side of her head. The crack on impact is sickening; the thud her body makes as she collapses on the wagon is worse.

The fall of the baker’s daughter breaks the crowd faster than even 1000 mounted policemen could. Much of the remaining crowd grab whatever food and weapons they can and run. A few raise their weapons, ready to charge at Roger, but find horses and guns in their way. A waifish, red-haired boy lobs a chunk of broken wood at one of the officers. Moments later, he’s being restrained by two others.

Roger yanks on his reins and pulls his horse back around to the wagon. The woman’s head lolls as Gabriel heaves her up and unceremoniously dumps her on the back of Roger’s steed. Adrien strains to hear what his father says, but Nino has pulled him off the streets, into the shelter of an alley and too far to make out Gabriel’s command. Whatever it was is met with Roger’s sharp nod and a disgusted sneer at the limp form behind him.

The rest of the police circle the mob’s stragglers and fighters, disarming them, declaring arrests, and looping ropes around their wrists. Adrien spots Gabriel’s cool stare over the small crowd and shudders - there will be little mercy for those men when tried in Gabriel’s court. Roger leaves, no doubt taking his newest prisoner to jail. Adrien’s heart gives a riotous start with the realization that he will likely never see the baker’s daughter again.

“Adrien, I’ve got to go.”

Adrien whips around, question on his lips, but Nino’s grimace shuts it down. Nino removes Adrien’s hand from where he’d still been holding on.

“You can go back to the carriage, go to the manor, but I have something I need to take care of.”

Nino’s eyes are fixed on a point past his shoulder, and Adrien has no doubt that Nino is watching the baker’s daughter be carted off.

“She’s your friend, isn’t she?”

“She is.” Nino’s voice shakes.

“Then let’s go.”

There’s no contention; Nino turns on his heel and runs, and Adrien follows. He cuts down an alley, then leads Adrien down a street towards the Seine. The usual traffic heading towards the Ȋle de la Cité has cleared with the raid, and it takes little time to reach the riverside. Rather than cross the river, Nino takes the street running parallel, never once stopping to ensure that Adrien kept up behind him. Adrien has a looming suspicion about where they are headed.

They stop in front of a tavern bearing a familiar insignia: the image of a rising sun, with arches of light curving over it. Césaire, one of the wealthiest merchants in the realm, made money move through the city. Adrien had heard of, but never met, his infamous daughter, though he was plenty familiar with her tavern, _Le Porte-Bonheur_. It had been Ladybug who had found the tavern and managed to arrange a room with Césaire’s daughter under a false name. He wasn’t sure which he heard more about Césaire’s daughter in the rumors: the questionable lineage of her mother, or her temper. Nino pushes the door open and rushes inside.

A woman at the bar - dark skin, red hair - looks up from her work and sends them a half-smile, confused.

“Nino, aren’t you supposed to be working?”

Nino ignores the woman’s queries, scanning the tavern and making note of each customer. Before Adrien can react, Nino clambers up onto the nearest table and shouts, “All of you, out! Now!”

Bolting up, the woman is out from behind the bar, making her way straight for Nino. Her expression drops, livid, and Adrien backs up on instinct. The people in the tavern cautiously stand up from their tables and start edging towards the door, less concerned and more curious, as if perhaps this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. The woman pulls a towel from her apron, winds it up as she stomps over, and launches it straight at Nino. The fabric snaps across the back of his knees, and he rams into the table with a frustrated yowl. Now eye-to-eye, she hits Nino with a glare hot enough for Adrien to feel.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she demands. “I don’t care whose shoes you shine, you can’t just come in here and scare off my patrons!” She swings from Nino to Adrien, and scowls. “And why is _he_  here? An Agreste in my establishment certainly won’t be _helping_  my business, you know that.”

Nino shakes his head and grabs her arm before she can rear back with the towel again.

“Alya, _Jesus_ , stop and listen,” Nino says, voice low. “It’s Marinette. They’ve got Marinette.”

She freezes. Color drains from her face, and the towel slips from her hand.

“Marinette’s been arrested,” Nino continues. “She was involved in one of the raids, and it got broken up by the police.”

Alya’s shoulders drop.

“Everyone, please go.” she says flatly. “Your meals are free, just get out.”

The tavern clears. Nino slides off the table and pulls a chair in time for Alya to collapse into it. He kneels next to her, taking her hand. The silence between them is potent. Adrien shifts from foot to foot, watching and feeling like he’s intruding somewhere he has no right to be. When Alya breaks the still, it’s with a shaking voice.

“What happened? What did you see?”

“We only caught the end of it,” Nino says. “Our carriage got stopped by the crowd from the raid, and Gabriel jumped out.”

Adrien doesn’t miss the way Alya tenses at his father’s name, the anger that cleaves her worried expression in two. He wants to feel offended, but somehow, he can’t blame her.

“Marinette was helping the men load a wagon with supplies. The police showed up, on horses, and dispersed most of the crowd, but Gabriel made sure Marinette was caught. The chief of police knocked her out and rode off with her.”

Alya stares down at her lap, and her and Nino’s joined hands.

“She’s probably been taken to the nearest jail,” Nino continues, “for questioning. As far as I could tell, no one was hurt in the raid before the police showed up, so they may just let her go. Or post a bail.”

“High price for treason, for conspiring against the law,” Alya says faintly. “I don’t know how much my father will be able to help. That, and-”

“I’ll help,” Adrien says. “I’ll pay the bail.”

The only one who looks more startled at his words than himself is Alya. Her head jerks up and she looks at him, hard, eyes narrowing.

“Your friend, ah, Marinette? I’ll pay her bail. She punched my father in the face,” Adrien says with a shrug. That’s not quite it, though - there’s something about Marinette that, with every interaction, has stuck.

Alya’s face blooms into shock. She blinks hard, shakes her head, and peers at him once more.

“I can’t believe it,” she mutters. Lifts her eyes to the heavens. “Of course it would be. Of course, _you_  would be-”

“Alya, are you okay?” Nino asks. She glances at him, and straightens in her seat.

“And I bet you knew, too, didn’t you, Nino? This whole time-” Alya cuts off with an exasperated huff. She plants her head in her hands, fingers tugging through her hair. Adrien and Nino look to one another, uncertain.

“Adrien Agreste. You’re Chat Noir.”

It’s like the ground has been wrenched out from underneath him: he stammers, stumbles, trips, and falls over his denial. Nino only makes it worse, his weak protests confirming Alya’s words. Alya waves away their excuses.

“I’d know your voice anywhere, Chat Noir. I’ve spent the last two years hearing it creep through my walls.” She raises an eyebrow. Adrien shifts under her pointed look, the whiplash of Alya’s sudden discovery not enough to dull his embarrassment at what she’s suggesting.

“I can’t tell if this makes things easier, or harder,” she continues. “The thing is, I’m betting your father is about to bend the law. Marinette won’t be freed on bail. In fact, I doubt she’ll be staying in a regular jail cell for long.”

Adrien has little affection for his father, but habit grips his lips. “My father would never-”

Alya stills Adrien with another look. He swears he sees the lashing tongues of flame behind Alya’s eyes when she opens her mouth and says-

“Your father isn’t going to want to let Marinette go, Chat, because Marinette is Ladybug.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU Created by brettanomycroft, luullaby, and shadybug of Tumblr.
> 
> Written by brettanomycroft.
> 
> http://brettanomycroft.tumblr.com  
> http://luullaby.tumblr.com  
> http://shadybug.tumblr.com


	3. Rouge

_Brothers and Sisters, what do we do once the negotiations have failed? What do we do when our voices are not heard? What do we do when words are not enough? Listen to the cries of hungry children, to the thunder of pounding feet, to the crackle of fire. Listen, and you will hear the answer._

— Essais Revolutionnaires, La Voix

* * *

Alya gives him a key to the room upstairs. It’s an alien action, turning the key and swinging the door open. He’s always come through the window.

He can’t think of a time he’s ever seen the room empty. Either he and Ladybug arrived together, or she was there, waiting for him. Adrien shrugs off Nino’s coat and hangs it over the chair. The room looks as it always does: bed made, water basin at the small side table, stump of candle waiting to be lit.

Adrien goes to bed early, tries to sleep, but the absence gnaws a hole under his ribs and no amount of tossing and turning is able to keep the tiny bed he used to share from feeling uncomfortably large. Hours after sunset, he gives up and rolls out of bed. He props himself up in the chair and dozes off not long before dawn, still staring at the window in hopes that she might, by some miracle, come through.

* * *

“Well, now, aren’t you interesting.”

Marinette refuses to look up. She doesn’t have to - the cold voice is unmistakable. The hard stone beneath her yields no comfort to her aching body, and the ropes that bite into her wrists have begun to blister her skin, but she makes no move to get more comfortable or to scoot away from the black shadow he casts.

“A little revolutionary,” Gabriel Agreste continues, stepping closer. “I never knew they came so small, or so pretty. But I suppose that’s to be expected of a girl chosen to be Ladybug.”

Her heart gives a painful lurch. She feels his eyes rove over every inch of her face, searching for a reaction. She’ll give him nothing, if she can help it. Instead, her shoulders slump, and she forces her bottom lip to tremble. It’s not hard - she’s _terrified_.

“L-Ladyb-bug?” she stammers. “I-I’m, I’m not - I’m j-just a baker’s daughter.”

Gabriel kneels down in front of her. He reaches out, taking her chin in hand. She flinches, trying to escape his touch, but there’s nowhere to retreat. The skin from cheek to temple, bruised and broken, explodes in pain. Marinette lets out a whimper, but Gabriel forces her head up. Her pain becomes secondary as her eyes meet his.

Marinette has never seen _Le Papillon_  this close, besides when she’d lashed out and hit him. He’s handsome, as perfect and empty as the marble statues she’s seen at Versaille as Ladybug. An angry god carved from ice. She shivers under his fingers. A hint of a smile touches his lips, but it brings no softness to his features.

“Maybe Ladybug, maybe not - _La Voix_ , possibly? You’re certainly something more than just ‘a baker’s daughter’. I know that look in your eyes. Like the world as it is will never be enough for you. I see it every day in myself; don’t think I can’t see it in others.”

She’s supposed to act scared. Supposed to cower and quiver. But his words are a sucker punch, and she finds herself swinging back.

“I’m _nothing_  like you,” she spits, “and I’ll never be like you.”

A grin splits his face, and he lets go of her. Despite his smile, his pale eyes remain cold, heavy.

“See? There it is. Like it or not, we are quite similar, Mademoiselle Dupain. We like being in control. We like being at the front of a fight. We like winning. And because of that, you’re too big of a threat for me to simply post a bail and let you walk. You’re too familiar with my household, with my staff, and with you leading raids and your father representing the National Assembly, well…”

“Please, leave my father alone! He doesn’t know about the raids, he’d never have let me-”

Gabriel cuts her off with a calculated sigh, and stands back up.

“Oh, I’m certain he wouldn’t have. The list of things fathers would never allow their children to do could circle around the world, twice. But that never stops them, does it?”

He begins to pace the small jail cell, polished boots kicking up dust and bits of hay. The indigo of his coat is so vibrant against the dark, dull jail, it almost burns her eyes. She blinks, and looks away.

“No… I can’t just let you go,” Gabriel muses. “I think it’s a time for a change of scenery.”

* * *

For the second morning in a row, Alya greets him with a bowl of porridge and a comment about how terrible he looks. Adrien shrugs and takes the bowl, settling next to Nino at one of the tables. Nino and Alya make small talk as they all eat, each pausing at times to pose questions to Adrien, each resuming conversation without expectation that he’d answer.

“Tom’s been notified that Marinette’s in jail,” Alya says, jabbing her spoon into her breakfast. “Sabine’s beside herself, and Tom’s going to the Assembly today to convince them to condemn _Le Papillon_.”

“They will,” Nino responds. “The whole city’s been itching for a reason to. But it won’t do much.”

“No. No it won’t.”

Alya’s sigh is soft, small, and Adrien glances up from his food just in time to see her relentlessly fierce facade falter. Dark circles ring her eyes - they all look bad, if Adrien’s being honest - and he knows the hours she’s spent reaching out to prominent names within her father’s circle, coordinating the effort to have Marinette freed, and penning her next pamphlet as _La Voix_  are starting to take their toll. Her effort adds to the dull dread of Adrien’s own uselessness: without knowing exactly where Marinette is being held, his patrols as Chat had been little more than a means of exhausting himself to troubled sleep, and for the first time in his life, Adrien’s name held no weight. Plagg had been more trouble than help, emerging from Adrien’s jacket for long enough to sulk or beg Adrien to start turning the city to rubble in pursuit of his Ladybug.

It won’t be much longer until Adrien concedes.

A knock at the door interrupts his thought. They rise as one, but Nino reaches the door first.

“We’re closed,” he shouts.

The thick tavern door muffles the already quiet reply. “It’s me,” a faint voice murmurs.

Nino, hand on the dagger at his belt, opens the door a crack, looks out, and then quickly swings it open. Nathanaël steps in, and Nino slams and locks the door behind him.

Alya drops back into her chair and wipes her brow with a corner of her apron.

“Any news?” she asks.

Nathanaël shoots Adrien a wary look. Two days ago, Nathanaël had been the next person to arrive at the tavern after Marinette’s arrest. Red-faced and panting, he’d drawn a knife on Adrien before Alya and Nino had convinced Nathanaël that Adrien was on their side. Were he not so intent on freeing his Lady, Adrien might be more concerned at the other man’s interest in Marinette. But he’s not interested in displays of power; Adrien stands up, grabs their empty bowls, and heads over to the bar, listening as Nathanaël reports in.

“As we thought he might, _Le Papillon_  is letting all of the others arrested from the raid off with bail, no trial - everyone but Marinette.”

Alya’s huff of disgust speaks for them all.

“Naturally. Anything else? You wouldn’t come all the way out here over something we already knew.”

Nathanaël’s expression darkens.

“Last night, a covered cart escorted by a full, mounted police force left the main jail. The few people who saw the cart being loaded said there were three or four loaded into the cart - one of them, a woman. Word is, they’re political prisoners, most members of the parties organizing the raids, one of them possibly part of the Assembly.”

“Where did the cart go?” Nino asks.

“The Bastille.”

The name falls with the thick thud of a guillotine. Adrien’s stomach turns, rebelling against even the simple porridge.

“Are they insane?” Alya yelps. “The Bastille’s a fortress! Is _Le Papillon_  that afraid of a handful of revolutionaries and a young woman?”

“Apparently,” Nathanaël says, voice grim. “The good news is, it was apparently the last straw for most. People have been upset over prisoners in the Bastille for months - there’s just a few of them, but Marquis de Sade’s yelling over his mistreatment is sinking in. On my way here, I heard that there’s a large group gathering outside the prison. If we’re going to get Marinette free, now’s the time.”

Adrien knew the Bastille. His father had taken him a handful of times, before his mother died. A lesson in the power of justice, in the justice of power, Gabriel had said. He’d led Adrien down the cold stone halls, introducing him to the _Noblesse_  who had spoken out against the King and the city politicians who had agitated for change. His father had sent them there, personally.

“What if she’s not there?” Nino asks. “What if she wasn’t the one who was moved?”

The towers of the prison loom large now in Adrien’s mind. Marinette was there. No doubt his father was, too. Adrien opens his mouth to say as much, but something about the words catches in his throat, as if to speak of his father and his Lady in the same sentence might make him complicit in it all.

“Even if she isn’t, it doesn’t change the fact that there’s a crowd outside of the Bastille. Every available soldier and police officer will be gathering there to keep things from getting out of hand,” Alya says.

A smile breaks across Nathanaël’s face. “Meaning that there will be fewer people guarding the main jail. We should split up, go to both.”

“I’m going to the Bastille.”

The other three turn to look at Adrien. Alya nods, looking relieved. Nathanaël stares like he’s never seen Adrien in his life.

“But you barely know Marinette,” Nathanaël protests, “and you’re an Agreste. You really expect me to believe you’re going to risk getting caught up in the crossfire for her?”

Adrien swings around the bar and crosses over to Nathanaël in an instant. Almost chest-to-chest, Adrien is close enough to see Nathanaël’s hard swallow as Adrien glowers down at him.

“I am going to get her back,” Adrien growls. “And if you get in my way, the things I will do to you will ensure I’m sent to the Bastille regardless.”

Nathanael staggers back, and Nino jumps between them, but Alya just laughs.

* * *

Chat takes another look at the gathering crowd, then ducks back behind the cover of the building separating he and Nino from the Bastille’s outer gate.

“It looks like they’re just standing around,” he says. “Nothing really… exciting.”

“Oh, yeah,” Nino says, rolling his eyes. “Nothing exciting about a fully-armed mob of hundreds gathering to storm a fortress.”

Chat runs his fingers through his hair and takes a deep breath, trying to slow the erratic pump of his heart. His tail flicks at his ankles, undermining any pretense of composure.

“Well, we can’t exactly take advantage of a distraction if the distraction isn’t happening.”

Nino says nothing, but the tense frustration rolls off of him in waves so thick it feels physical. He checks the slim knife - not much more than a glorified letter opener, but a blade nonetheless - at his belt once, twice, then shoves his hands in his pockets.

“I guess we wait, then.”

The morning is still early, and in the next hour, they watch as the crowd grows, people coming from every direction of the city, every one armed. Chat makes no attempt to hide in the shadows as protesters pass them on their way to the Bastille. Most give him a wide berth and a dubious glance.

Idle conversation between the two of them, the scarcest diversion of their nerves, leads Chat to the question that had been itching in his throat for the past two days.

“Did you know?”

Nino takes a long look up and down the street they’re waiting on, then looks up and scans the building at their back. His voice is a low murmur when he does finally speak.

“Not for certain, but I’d suspected. I’d seen Marinette come downstairs to the tavern a handful of times. She lives nearby, so there was no reason for her to be renting a room. And once Alya mentioned that she kept a room reserved for Ladybug and Chat Noir… well…” Nino trails off with a shrug. “Marinette has been my friend for over four years. I was, what, fifteen? The first time I saw her, I swore I was in love. Her fire, her passion, her strength and humor… Once I thought about it, it almost seemed obvious that she would be Ladybug.”

Despite the room Chat knows Nino and Alya share, despite Nino’s steady presence at her side, the confession makes him bristle. Nino had known Marinette for longer than Chat had known Ladybug, had been allowed to see the face of the woman Chat had loved for years. No masks, no false names. Nino chuckles.

“Relax, Monsieur Noir. Marinette also introduced me to Alya - easily the second best thing to happen in my life.”

“You mean waiting on my father and I hand and foot for seven years hasn’t been the highlight of your work experience?”

They laugh, a small fraction of their nervousness draining.

“No, sorry,” Nino says. “As fun as it all has been, I only intend to stick around Agreste manor for as long as it takes to save up the money to make Alya a proper wife. Which I’m close to, I’ll have you know. I’ll be requesting a release from my duties soon, and hope you’ll allow it.”

“I’m not and have never been your master, Nino. You don’t have to ask permission.”

“I’m not asking as your family’s former slave. I’m asking as your friend.”

He’s struck speechless at first. Chat claps a hand on Nino’s shoulder, but it’s not enough to express the emotion surging beneath his ribs: he pulls Nino into a tight hug. They share grins when they part.

“In that case, I expect to be in the wedding.”

“You and Marinette both,” Nino says. His smile lifts the worry from his face, and for a moment, it’s almost like they’re not standing on the outskirts of a revolutionary mob, preparing to break into a fortress prison.  

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Nino finishes.

A cry rises from the crowd. In unison, they swing around the corner of the building, leaving all semblance of ease behind. Someone from the crowd raises a musket and shouts. The crowd picks up his words and echoes them, the chant amplifying into a roar. More weapons go up in the air.

Atop the outside wall of the Bastille, guards gather, guns in hand, and stare down at the crowd.

“Looks like things are about to get started,” Chat says. “I’ll try to get in from the top - stick with the crowd and try to get in from the front.”

“And then what?”

“We get Marinette out and meet back at the tavern.”

“This is a terrible plan.”

Chat pulls his baton from his waist and shrugs. “Let it be known to all of Paris that Chat Noir is not the strategist of the team.”

Nino’s chuckle is dry, flat. He slaps Chat on the back and shakes his head.

“Be safe,” he says. “I’ll see the two of you on the other side of this mess.”

With a nod, Chat extends his baton, and launches himself over the fray.

* * *

The passageway is blessedly empty, guards and soldiers drawn to the front gates to hold off the growing mob. Most of the cells are empty, as well. How many had Nathanaël said were imprisoned? Seven? But there is just one who matters to Chat. Voices call out to him as he passes the handful of occupied cells, but he plows on.

He finds her at the very end of the row. The lump huddled in the furthest corner doesn’t stir when he stops with a clatter.

Chat can’t see her face, and for a heartbeat thinks Alya has made a mistake: it’s impossible that the frail figure, barefoot and swamped in a dirty, white shift, could be Ladybug. But then she speaks.

“What do you want?” comes the muffled voice. “I’ve already told you what I know about the pamphlets.”

It’s like someone had taken his Lady and churned her into gravel, broken and dusty but unmistakable from the rock she once was. He’s heard pain in her words before, witnessed rage whip from her throat, but the two together are staggering.

“My Lady,” he breathes.

Her head snaps up. It can’t be more than a second or two that they stare at one another, but the wide blue of her eyes seems to drag him through eternity and back. Chat’s not certain if he’s wholly the same when the echo of a distant shot brings them back to the present.

Ladybug - Marinette, is the first to break eye contact. She unfolds until she is sitting up, legs straight in front of her. Bruises in sick purples and greens ring her ankles and trail up her calves, disappearing under the hem of her shift. Her arms are as discolored as her legs, and her movements are tender as she tries brush dirt and debris from her skirt.

“We weren’t supposed to meet this way,” she says.

She won’t look at him.

His heart starts beating again. Chat rushes forward, falls to his knees, and clutches at the bars between them.

“Are you all right? They- they hurt you, who was it? What did they do to your hair?”

Marinette chuckles wetly and fingers an uneven strand of her shorn hair.

“Easier to spot lice when it’s short,” she says, “It is, according to the men who brought me here, a ‘Common problem for peasants like you.’”

The rage curdled in his gut erupts at that, thick in his arms and sour on his tongue. It feels heavy, black, and bites at his fingers, begging him to say the word.

“I’ll kill them,” he says, “Every last person who dared lay a hand on you.”

She startles and looks back up. The sound of gunfire mingles with shouting, louder now, but Chat can’t find it in him to care. The mob could burn the whole damn prison down once he got her out.

“Chat, no, you shouldn’t even be here. It’s too risky, and I’m, I’m not-”

If he hadn’t been sure before, Marinette’s expression confirms it. Her lips form the same grimace that crossed Ladybug’s face each time she’d refused him her identity, or whenever she would go snubbed by police despite capturing a suspect. It’s the kind of look that leaves him unsurprised to hear her continue with a dark, “I’m not worth risking your safety, Chaton. You can’t get caught in the crossfire of all of this. I’m not worth you getting hurt.”

Chat stands. He looks for any sign of a guard’s station or place where keys to the cell might be kept. His hands still itch with an unspoken Cataclysm. It would be so easy, so satisfying, to watch the iron bars crumble to rust, but there’s no way to know if he’d have enough time after that to get her out before losing his powers. He needs time to talk to her first, before his mask falls away; he needs her to know that he is Chat Noir before he is Adrien Agreste. But the middle of a rescue, in the middle of a violent protest, is hardly the time or place to reveal his identity.

“There are hundreds of people outside, trying to topple a jail holding fewer than ten prisoners,” he says, stepping a few feet from the cell and peering down the passage. It looks like there may be a door a few yards down. “They’re risking their lives for an ideal, risking their lives to fight an injustice…”

Chat pauses, looking over his shoulder at her. Marinette has stood up, hands gripping the bars of the cell. Blue, her wide eyes stay fixed on him even as tears swell at the corners.

“They’re putting their lives as stake for something bigger, more important than you, or me, and they’ll do it with or without us,” Chat continues. The sight of her draws him back. He covers one hand with his before breathing, “The least I can do is rescue the one person best equipped to help… Though, I can’t lie, being madly in love with you has been a motivating factor.”

His voice scrapes and buckles with his pitiable attempt at humor, but Marinette nonetheless lets out a croaking laugh. Her eyes flutter shut and tears roll down her cheeks, cutting tracks through the grime to reveal rose-flushed skin. She scrubs at one cheek with a hand, and laughs again.

“How can you still say that, after all of this? It’s my fault we’re here. I’m the one who put us both in danger. Some stupid, angry commoner.”

“Because you’re not any of those things. You may be a baker’s daughter, but you’re the leader of a revolution, the savior of the city, and my partner.” A ghost of a grin flits across Chat’s face. “Now, if you’re quite done beating yourself up, I’d like to get us both out of here.”

It must be magic, the way she manages to be so stunning in filth and rags. She looks up at him through long lashes, bites at her plush bottom lip, and nods. Chat gives her fingers a gentle squeeze and turns to investigate the hallway.

A dark shadow breaks the weak daylight streaming through a few meager windows. Used to the dark, Chat’s eyes make out the man’s features with ease.

“I should have expected I’d find you here.”

Gabriel’s voice cuts down the hall like lightning and threatens to strike twice. From behind Chat comes Marinette’s soft gasp. She reaches through the bars and puts her palm flat against his back.

“Go,” she hisses. “Get out of here while you can, please.”

Chat shakes his head, never letting his eyes stray from his father. The sounds from outside are louder, now, the thick walls of the fortress the only thing keeping the deafening gunshots and screams to a rumble. Despite the madness outside, Gabriel seems unruffled, as if he were on a casual stroll before supper.

Chat should react - pull out his baton, summon his Cataclysm, run, _something_  - but Gabriel’s calm is a paralytic.

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice when you didn’t come home?” Gabriel asks.

He comes to a stop in front of the cell next to Marinette’s and crosses his arms. His gaze pierces Chat, hard enough to strip away the disguise. Chat reaches up to feel his mask still firmly in place.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says.

It’s far from convincing.

“Don’t act like an idiot, Adrien,” Gabriel scolds. “It’s unbecoming.”

The words hang between them. Chat tries to rebuke them, to wave them away, but they stick. Another gasp from Marinette, followed by a wavering, “Adrien Agreste?”

Gabriel ignores her.

“I suppose I’m the one who has been a fool,” he says. “I’ve allowed this to go on for far too long, Adrien. At first I tolerated it, thinking perhaps giving you some time to run around in a silly mask and have your… dalliances… with some peasant girl would entertain you until you realized the importance of your role in this family.”

His eyes flick to Marinette. The ice of his expression cracks, a scowl unfurling as he stares her down. Chat takes a step, putting himself between them, and Gabriel’s frown deepens.

“Clearly, I was mistaken,” Gabriel sniffs. “This is not your fight, and these are not your kind. Turn around. Leave the girl, and I will make sure the guards take care of her.”

 _That_  snatches Chat from his stupor. He turns to Marinette and gestures towards her bruised limbs.

“Like they were taking care of her before?” he snaps. “You have to be joking.”

Gabriel’s lips twitch. He carries on, as if Chat had never spoken.

“Follow the passage behind you, take the back gate out, and go home. I still have business to tend to here. We’ll talk more about this over dinner.”

“No.”

Gabriel raises an eyebrow. He straightens to his full height and folds his hands behind his back. When Adrien was a child, it was the stance his father took before doling out a punishment. He used to cower, all too aware of Gabriel’s broad shoulders and strong arm. But now, Chat’s eyes are level with his, and Chat can feel every coil of muscle tense in anticipation. He is not weak, nor is he afraid for himself. He can’t be, not with Marinette at his back.

“Adrien, I don’t think you understand the situation here, it’s hardly the place-”

Chat cuts him off. “I understand what’s going on, and I’m not leaving.”

The clench of Gabriel’s fists does not go unnoticed. Chat can practically hear the grinding of teeth as Gabriel chews on his response.

“Listen to me,” he says. “All of this has been for you, for this family.” He gestures towards the wall, and the angry crowd beyond it. “Those people, they want to take everything we have, everything our family has worked for. They’d put us on the streets, if they could.”

“ _Those people_  are the people of Paris, and many of them _have_  been living in the streets for years now,” Chat says. “I’m not going to turn my back on them…” He trails off. Marinette has been staring, watching in silence as the first acts of war were declared. He reaches out, slotting his hand between the bars, and without hesitation, she takes it. “And I won’t turn my back on her.”

Somehow, Chat knows it the moment he sees some part of Gabriel break. For years, he’s seen his father’s expression, devoid of emotion, but as the frown slides from his face and is replaced with something hard, unreadable, it’s undeniable that the tie between them has changed. Broken or frayed.

Gabriel gives a sharp nod.

“Very well. I think you’ll find you regret this. Guards!”

He turns on his heel and shouts once more the for prison guards. The clod of heavy boots echo from beyond where the passage splits off at the end. They’re not far off. Chat has no other choice. He drops Marinette’s hand.

“ _Cataclysme_!”

With every nerve and every ounce of focus, Chat tries his best to direct the glug of energy that pulses from his hand. Gabriel looks back.

Black power surges around the bars of the cell and up the stone wall, arching along the ceiling and collapsing an entire section of the hall. Dust rises as rocks fall, and the cell door rusts away to nothing. More stones, those not disintegrated, drop from the ceiling, dislodged. Marinette rushes from what’s left of the cell, and Chat catches her in a crushing hug. From the other side of the tall wall of rubble, men shout angrily.

“Clear the way!” Gabriel screams. “Get them!”

She slips her hand in his and looks up.

“We should get out,” she says.

He nods, but neither move, unwilling to break the contact between them.

“It will take them a minute.”

Chat releases his transformation. He hopes he’ll have enough time to let Plagg recover. The kwami is uncharacteristically quiet as he looks down at Marinette with large, worried eyes.

“Oh,” she breathes. There’s the faintest of smiles as she pulls up a corner of her shift and flips it over, revealing a pair of earrings fastened to the thick hem.

“I couldn’t let Gabriel take them.”

She undoes the earrings and quickly puts them on.

A small red blur zips from the earrings and collides with Plagg, clarifying a moment later into a spotted, blue-eyed kwami. Their hug is as tight as Marinette and Adrien’s. Whatever words are exchanged between the kwamis are too quiet to hear over the grunts and shouts of the soldiers trying to clear the hallway. They part slowly and make their way back to Adrien and Marinette.

“There’s no more time,” the Ladybug kwami trills, “We need to get out of here.”

“Yeah!” Plagg says. “Quit ogling each other and _go_!”

The flush that rises to Marinette’s cheeks is all the more wonderful unimpeded by the mask. He wants to kiss her, in the middle of a sieged prison, feet away from the man who tried to keep them apart. Instead, he takes a step back and revels, for the first time, in the way his Lady transforms.

Through pink light and dust, Adrien glimpses rage in the form of his father’s face, peering between the fallen stone. Ladybug transformed, they run in the opposite direction.

* * *

The crowd moves with a mind of its own, and it takes all of Nino’s strength not to get swept away in it.

He stops hard before a set of frenzied blue eyes. Nino almost doesn’t recognize Gabriel, with his wild hair and torn robes. A man to his left drops, bullet to his chest and a cry on his lips. The crowds whirls, crashing and breaking all around them, but as they stand, eyes locked, Nino feels still. In the confusion of the mob, no one but Nino seems to notice _Le Papillon_.

The Bastille is limned in bursts of gunpowder and smoke, a massive beast rising from Hell. In front of him stands the man responsible for all of this. The man whose machinations ruined the Estates General, the man who’d spent years condemning the people to prison, famine, death. The man holding Marinette, Ladybug, Nino’s friend, prisoner. The man whose very existence was a threat to the woman he loved.

This is his moment. Nino has a knife.

Like this - a trail of blood fresh at his temple, lips parted in a silent shout - Gabriel Agreste doesn’t seem so intimidating.

Gabriel Agreste. The man whose wife freed him. His best friend’s father.

Nino has a knife, but it’s his hand that he extends instead.

“Come with me!” Nino yells. “I’ll get you out!”

Gabriel stumbles forward. His eyes run up and down Nino’s form, like he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing. He begins to speak. Nino leans in to hear.

“…everything. I’ve lost it all. I’ve lost control of it all.”

“Sir, this isn’t the time, let’s go!”

Nino grabs Gabriel by the shoulders and pulls, urging him to move.

“You. You’re a part of this,” Gabriel says. “It was Césaire. Of _course_  it was Césaire. I’m a fool.”

Nino lets his hands drop and tries to take a step back. The crowd has other ideas, surging ahead, leaving inches between Gabriel and Nino. Suddenly, his heartbeat cracks louder than gunfire.

“All that time I spent trying to track down how _La Voix’s_  papers were getting published… but the answer was right under my nose, wasn’t it, Nino?”

There’s nowhere for Nino to escape in the tight-packed crowd. He wishes he’d drawn his knife sooner, wishes he’d gone with his gut. He pulls the knife now, holding it out in warning, but Gabriel takes one look at it and howls in laughter. He looks undone: a butterfly, one wing plucked, careening to the ground in a dizzying flutter.

“Years of meticulous planning, undone by a bunch of slaves and peasants!” Gabriel shrieks.

Gabriel leaps forward and smacks the knife from Nino’s grip. Nino jumps back only to collide with someone behind him; knocked off balance, he missteps and hits the ground. Nino struggles to scramble backwards, but he’s blocked in on all sides. Gabriel drops to his knees.

Their eyes lock on the knife at the same time.

Gabriel reaches it first.

* * *

The churning sea of bodies pounds at the walls of the Bastille. The Bastille lashes out, a furious child hurling pebbles into the waves. Bodies fall, but the tide swells, unstoppable.

Hysteria gurgles from her chest and reaches her throat as a wheezing laugh. Smoke scratches tears from her eyes, or maybe she’s just crying. Ladybug stares off the edge of the high defensive wall and spins her bandalore, but it doesn’t feel like power in her fingertips. It’s a useless motion - it’s impossible to tell where to fight, who to defend, how to even begin. Chat shares in her paralysis: he stands, baton extended, ready to attack but utterly lost.

“What do we do?” she gasps.

She feels just as trapped as she had been before.

“I don’t know,” Chat says. “We can’t stop them - shouldn’t stop them-”

In the middle of a battle, facing questionable survival, Ladybug’s heart pounds. If this is how it ends, she will die happily at the side of the one she loves, the one who risked his life for her. For the people of the city.

“We need to move, though, and fast,” he continues. “More guards will be coming around to defend this wall soon, and they’ll be ready to shoot us down.”

She doesn’t want to die. Ladybug scans the crowd, their placement along the parapet, the pops of smoke rising from the guns of guards far down the wall. Despite the smoke and the darkness of night, Ladybug’s vision snags on flashes of red magic. It clicks.

“The guards,” she says. “Chat, we need to stop the guards somehow. There aren’t nearly as many of them as there are people at the gates, so-”

“We stop the guards and let the people take the prison.”

She nods. “We’ve got to act fast, before more people die.”

Her bandalore wraps back around her waist and she squares her shoulders. Chat looks down at her, resolve chiseled into his features. He wraps his arms around her and swings her into a kiss. The collision is hard, teeth and tongue. Their mouths move to the rhythm of gunfire and the battle cries below. The fierceness melts a moment later. The press of lips becomes tender, Ladybug’s gentle kisses saying everything she could not. There is no time to explore the soft need, but as Chat’s eyes slide open, as he stares down at her with unmasked adoration, she knows that he understands.

“I love you,” she murmurs.

“I love you. Now, let’s go.”

They part and charge for the nearest guards, those so locked in the fight that Ladybug and Chat have gone unnoticed. Chat clears the first two with a powerful swipe of his baton, knocking both back away from the edge of the wall and onto their backs. Two pairs of eyes widen in fear at the sight of Paris’s defenders, and as soon as the men are back on their feet, they’re fleeing. Ladybug’s bandalore wraps up the next guard they come across. She yanks on the string, slamming the guard into the back wall and releasing him in one smooth motion. He slides down in a boneless heap.

A few yards down the wall, the seven or eight remaining guards have gathered to shoot out into the mob. It’s too many for either of them to take down with baton or bandalore. Still running, Ladybug tosses her bandalore in the air.

“Lucky Charm!”

The flagpole that emerges from the pink light is firm and heavy in her hands. Above her head, a flag unfurls. It’s a near copy of the flag of Paris, but for the white stripe down the center, separating blue and red. For a moment, the weight of it seems to grow. The next moment, Ladybug is swinging it at the group of guards. Three are struck down as the flagpole catches them in the head; another three are blinded by the flag itself long enough for Chat to knock them out.

Two remain. One drops his gun and turns tail. The other screams, pivots to face them, and cocks his gun.

A rock, chucked up from the crowd, makes a perfect arch in the air, and strikes the man on the crown of his head. He shakes it off, but it serves to distract, drawing the guard’s attention to the milling bodies pressing at the gate. The guard swings his gun back around to the mob. Ladybug and Chat turn, eyes drawn to the action down below.

The streak of indigo in the crowd anchors her gaze. Gabriel Agreste, battered but standing, looms over a prone figure. She can see his mouth moving, but the constant shifting of the crowd obscures whoever is at his feet. Gabriel launches himself at the person on the ground, and three things happen at once:

The guard takes aim at someone in the crowd.

Gabriel grabs a knife off the ground.

The crowd parts just enough for her to see Nino’s stunned face.

“No!” Chat screams.

Gabriel’s hand rises once, twice.

Ladybug is too far to hear Nino’s cries of anguish, but Chat’s deafen her. From this height, the blood that seeps from between Nino’s fingers as he clutches at his stomach looks more like silken embroidery escaping from his white shirt than his life running from him.

She doesn’t realize _she’s_  screaming until the guard jerks, startled by the sound. The clap of gunfire resonates in her chest.

Whoever the guard had aimed at is spared. The bullet instead lodges itself between Gabriel Agreste’s shoulders. Ladybug only has a heartbeat to stare, to watch as blood spreads across his back, before Chat’s knees give out and he collapses at her side, but in the second before she turns away, she swears that the dark stain resembles wings.

The word comes out in one broken gasp.

“ _Cataclysme_.”

Black shadow crackles from his fist, and streaks across stone as he unfurls his hand and slams his palm down. She drops the flag. Ladybug barely has enough time to throw an arm around his chest and whip out her bandalore; she swings them both from the wall as it crumbles underneath their feet.

The wall buckles into rock and sand. The guard tumbles down, lost in the plume of dust that erupts or crushed under the larger chunks of the wall, Ladybug does not know. The cries of shock from the mob lift into shouts of triumph, and they storm as one body past a gate that no longer stands.

Ladybug hits the top of one of the still-standing towers with a painful jolt, and Chat slips out of her grasp. He sinks to his knees and buries his head in his hands. Black-gloved fingers yank at golden hair as Chat trembles and sobs. Ladybug blinks back tears. She has to keep herself together, for him. She shuffles over to Chat and kneels down next to him.

“Chat.”

His head flies up, and he looks around with wide eyes, as if he’d forgotten even where he was. Ladybug rests a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Chat, love, I’m so so-”

“We have to go. We have to go get them!”

Ladybug looks over her shoulder to the rush of people overrunning the Bastille. Plenty still lingered outside the ruined gate, agitated, ready for their own chance to get inside. Her earrings chime, and his ring follows.

“We can’t, Chaton, we don’t have time. We’ve got to get down from here and, and get to safety.”

“I can’t leave them here. Nino, my father-” Chat chokes over her words, and his body shakes harder.

“If we go down there, we’ll be surrounded,” she says. It’s hard to fight the waver in her voice. “We have to leave, _Minou_.”

“I won’t. I won’t leave.”

Chat stands abruptly, then takes a staggering step. She wraps both hands around his arm, pulling him back. The slight resistance is enough to undo his balance, and his knees buckle, pitching him back to the ground. He stares up at her.

“Chaton, my love. We’ve got just a few minutes. We need to go, Adrien. We need to survive this. Adrien. Come on.”

He nods, but doesn’t stand. She hauls Chat to his feet and wraps an arm around his waist, steadying him as his knees buckle once more. Smoke, now coming from inside the prison, clots much of her vision, but she traces a path down. The way out is clear for now, but safety far from guaranteed.

Ladybug allows herself to look back once. Maybe the crowd is too thick, or maybe their bodies have already been dragged away, but the motionless forms of Gabriel and Nino are nowhere to be seen. They exist nowhere on the field but in her mind.

* * *

Alya is waiting for them. Marinette knocks once, and the door to the tavern flings open. She drags Adrien to the nearest chair, Alya’s exclamations and questions flying over her.

“Marinette, where’s Nino?”

Alya’s question echoes through the empty tavern, and Marinette finally lets herself cry.

* * *

The bells of Notre Dame toll at daybreak, cutting through the somber silence of the city. Ladybug lets the sound wash over her, lets it rattle her bones and pierce her aching muscles. She leans against the wall of the bell tower and simply feels.

Smoke rises in the east. It streaks across the rising sun, but no longer darkens the sky. In a prison not far over the river, fires are still being put out.

Chat’s fingers tangle in hers and grips tight. His gaze is fixed on the Bastille, what remains of it. She squeezes his hand back.

“It’s over,” she says softly.

“I don’t think so,” he croaks. The green of his irises are ringed in red, and shadows chip away at the skin under his eyes. “This is just the beginning.”

“Maybe,” Ladybug says. “Whether this is the beginning or the end, we’ll be ready for what comes next.”

“What comes next?”

“I don’t know. But I’ll be right by your side, whenever it comes.”

Chat considers her words, then nods.

“Ladybug and Chat Noir will protect this city, and its people,” he says. “No one else will have to die.”

“We’ll protect it together. Forever.”

“Forever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU Created by brettanomycroft, shadybug, luullaby of Tumblr.
> 
> Written by brettanomycroft
> 
> http://brettanomycroft.tumblr.com  
> http://shadybug.tumblr.com  
> http://luullaby.tumblr.com

**Author's Note:**

> AU Created by brettanomycroft, shadybug, and luullaby of Tumblr.
> 
> Written by brettanomycroft
> 
> http://brettanomycroft.tumblr.com  
> http://shadybug.tumblr.com  
> http://luullaby.tumblr.com


End file.
